Profiles: Jintronix Kinects with Microsoft

Alumni PROFILES

JINTRONIX KINECTS with MICROSOFT

Think of it as video games in the service of medicine. Five Selwyn House Old Boys just returned from Seattle, Washington, where they were working with Microsoft and other major high-tech companies to harness the power of cutting-edge game technology for use in physiotherapy.

Justin Tan 2004, Shawn Errunza 2004, Alexis Youssef 2004, Sung Jun Bae 2005 and Max Graham 2004 are five of the nine core members of Jintronix, a company founded by Justin in 2011 to develop a 3-D gaming-style software that would digitally record a person’s hand movements using a virtual-reality glove like those used in video games. The system is designed to monitor the motion of a stroke victim as he practices his rehabilitation exercises, and transmit that information directly to his doctor.

The Seattle project was part of Kinect Accelerator, a partnership program between Microsoft’s BizSpark program and Techstars, an organization that provides mentorships and seed funding for start-ups of new web and software companies. Out of 500 competing applicants, Jintronix was one of 11 projects from five countries chosen to receive $20,000, an office in Seattle and access to high-tech mentors such as WordPress and Microsoft Game Studios.

In Seattle, the boys from Jintronix spent three months developing a system that employs Microsoft’s latest Kinect video-game technology to track a patient’s motion. As an addon to the Xbox 360 video-game module, Kinect can track a person’s movements and voice commands without the use of a

glove or hand-held interface. The system had been marketed for use in gaming and social networking, but Microsoft recently released a Kinect software development kit for Windows and issued a challenge to entrepreneurs to see what other uses they can find for the technology. For now, the Jintronix system uses Kinect in tandem with the glove. “We are confident that future iterations of the Kinect are going to be capable of fine-motor tracking,” says Max, “and at that point, we would no longer use the glove, and rely solely on the Kinect for our gross- and fine-motor tracking.” The Jintronix team demonstrated their final business plan to potential investors in late June 28 and then returned to Montreal to try their new system out on patients. The Seattle experience was “a reallyStanding,from left;Justin Tan,Max Graham and Mark Evin. Seated:Shawn Errunza,Alexis Youssef and Sonny Bae. unique and fantasticopportunity, both for Jintronix and all of us individually,” says By Richard Wills, publications editor Max. “All of the other teams were made up of some really smart, creative, fun people, and it was a amazing getting to work alongside them. “Besides the other teams, we were also introduced to some great mentors who had a lot to teach us. They really challenged our ideas, and made us view them more critically. Sometimes they would just completely destroy our ideas and we would have to start over from scratch, but we value that. Better then than later. They also presented us with some bold new ideas, which I think has inspired us to strive for even more.” When they were students at Selwyn House, most of the team members played video games. “Sunny” Bae is a Grand Master at StarCraft, and Alexis showed an early interest in video game design. But had no idea their pastime could one day become so valuable. “A lot of us were gamers,” confirms Max. “We don’t have time to play much anymore, but we’re taking a few notes from video games.” Part of the Jintronix vision is that, to be most effective, rehabilitation should be an enjoyable activity. “Games can be used as a tool for good,” says Max. “We want our platform to be fun.” Justin came up with the initial idea for computer-based rehab after seeing his father have difficulty with rehabilitation from a stroke. Justin decided that patients deserve a better way of regaining their motor skills. Based on the principles of affordability, adaptability, and intuitiveness, he was inspired to develop a therapeutic system that would be easy to use and available to anyone, anywhere. ■