Kareem Ayyad ’12
KNOWS WHAT YOU WANT The founder and CEO of Cerebian is changing the way humans interact with technology. BY JOHANNA LEE ’13
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BEYOND KING’S
I
magine being able to communicate telepathically with a friend, or a police officer navigating a colleague through a dangerous situation without saying a word. Imagine your phone creating a playlist based on your mood, without needing to touch a screen. Imagine a teacher being able to monitor the attention levels, engagement and understanding of her students in real time without using invasive technology. Kareem Ayyad ‘12 is not only making all this possible — he’s already made it happen. Ayyad is the founder and CEO of Cerebian, a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), which, in his words, is “a wearable device that measures signals from the brain and translates them into commands, actions or insights.” Sensors along the jaw and head detect the intention to speak — rather than private thoughts themselves — as signals can be measured more than 80 milliseconds before any muscle movement to open the mouth occurs. Cerebian’s applications are practically endless. It can enable those without the ability to speak to communicate in spoken language, protect private conversations, augment the mouse and keyboard in computer gameplay, provide daily brain analytics, and more. Earlier this year, a pilot program was successfully conducted with Toronto law enforcement, who used the technology to safely and silently navigate tactical situations, and generate cognitive analytics for officers