Building a Purpose-Driven Technology Company: Ammad Khan, Co-Founder and CEO of IrisVison

Startup Tri-Valley Podcast – Ammad Khan

Yolanda Fintschenko

This is the Startup Tri-Valley podcast featuring in depth conversations with the leaders who are making the Tri-Valley the go-to ecosystem for science based startups. I’m Yolanda Fintschenko from Startup Tri-Valley

Lynn Naylor   

And I’m Lynn Naylor, CEO of the Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group.

Yolanda Fintschenko

We’re here today with Ammad Khan, CEO and founder of IrisVision, and a couple other projects and companies, a serial entrepreneur here in the Tri-Valley. And, Ammad, welcome to the pod.

Ammad Khan

Oh, thank you for having me here.

Yolanda Fintschenko

So let’s kick it off. We were just talking before we started recording about all your projects. So you’re   here for IrisVision, which, you know, this past year you, you and IrisVision won an award and the ITV game changers, which is part of why we have you here. And maybe you could start with IrisVision, but talk maybe also a little bit about your other companies and how they’re related to what you’ve been doing at IrisVision.

Ammad Khan   

Certainly, so I have been in Tri-Valley for as long as I can remember. At this point, I started my first company, it’s called CitrusBits, more than 10 years ago, right here. CitrusBits is a digital services company. And we were building products for other startups and other enterprise type of customers. And in that process, we organized a team that understands how to deliver value by building technology solutions. So while building the products, for me, it was at the, at the time in my life, it was important to be doing something that would be purpose driven. And I met up with my co-founder, a professor of neuroscience from UC Berkeley, Professor Frank Werblin. And we went over this concept of using technology to help the visually impaired. And that was just a fascinating concept for me, I understood technology. And Frank understood how the visual process works and how the vision science works. And we got together and we founded IrisVision.

Yolanda Fintschenko

Wow. So it sounds like you used CitrusBits as a way to really build your skills as an entrepreneur to understand what it took to get a product to market. And that positioned you to take advantage of the, you know, your drive to have something that was purpose built. And that allowed you and Frank when you met to kind of coalesce on like, let’s do this.

Ammad Khan

That is exactly right. So a startup has many challenges in the beginning, right, you’re thinking you’re building a product, and you have to deal with all of the product development risks, product market fit, and you know, how are you going to bring it to market and all of that. So yes, having CitrusBits there, as a foundation with a team, some resources that were already in place that we could leverage to build a new concept was definitely helpful. And I was thinking of the conversation that we were having earlier about the work that i-GATE  and ITV is trying to do to provide that foundation. And I think having something in place for the founders to come together and start building on can go such a long way. There’s so much to be done. But having an environment that’s established that can facilitate innovation, right, can make all the difference.

Yolanda Fintschenko

So what you’re talking about is both having a place like Daybreak Labs that has lab space, but also a place where people from the ecosystem can literally get in the same room and whether that’s through events or or you know, other projects physically collide so they can create something.

Ammad Khan

Right? That’s exactly what I mean. Yeah, yeah.

Yolanda Fintschenko

That’s fantastic.

Lynn Naylor  

Yeah, I’ve been so excited to meet a mod through ITV and the game changers event, because we see the power in his work when he stands in front of a group of people and not only talks about the experience of founding the company, right, but the life changing impact that he’s having. I mean, just the room falls silent. So it’s really a thrill to have a chance to talk to a founder who’s been through all the product development and is in the market really changing lives. And that is so exciting to celebrate today with you, Ahmad.

Ammad Khan

Thank you for having me here.

Yolanda Fintschenko  

Yeah, so you’ve kind of set things up on how you formed IrisVision, do you want to maybe for our listeners describe IrisVision, the company and your product and where you guys are right now?

Ammad Khan   

Certainly. So I’ll start by talking about the problem that we wanted to solve. And then I’ll share some details about how we solve the problem. And then where we are right now.

So what happens for folks with, you know, any one of the well known eye conditions that make you visually impaired. Early on in life, most of us are not aware, if there is an eye condition that you’re predisposed to have glaucoma, macular degeneration, or diabetic retinopathy are three major causes in the United States that make a person visually impaired until it’s too late. And then when the vision loss has occurred, the person goes from having a normal life, to not being able to read or write, watch TV or even recognize the faces of family members. And depression sets in as a result, because you’re becoming socially isolated, and unfortunately, glasses, contact lenses, surgeries, are usually not not helpful for folks who have the type of damage that I’m talking about because of these chronic conditions. So and as you can imagine, these conditions, these conditions that I described, often affect folks who are, you know, at a later part in their life and aging. So it disproportionately affects seniors. So, you know, you’ve lived a full life. And now you’ve entered a phase where you know, you’re beginning your retirement life, and something like vision loss can truly be devastating, and cause depression. And that’s the problem we wanted to address, because we felt the technology that was already out there was inadequate, often too expensive. And there were a variety of different tools you needed: this tool for reading and that tool for doing something else.

So Frank and I felt there was a need for building a system that would be sort of universal in providing near intermediate and distant viewing tasks, folks should be able to use, you know, both hands while they’re using because sometimes when they would use a device, they would pick it up and then not be able to perform the task properly. So that was the problem we tried to solve. And we used virtual reality technology to build a product that would be wearable, and you know, they would be able to do pretty much everything that they were able to do when they had vision. We built IrisVision that delivered a solution that was compatible with various different types of vision loss, it could help a person at any age in any stage of vision loss. And they could do a variety of tasks from reading and writing and watching TV or paying bills or re-engage socially which is what we described sometimes as bringing people back to life. And it was just fantastic to see when we built the prototype. I love to share the story. One of my first experiences was a kid in Florida. We saw we were sending out prototypes to different doctors to see how they would receive it. One of the stories I received was a cell phone shot video of a kid. He was about eight or nine years old, sitting in the doctor’s chair and she offered our glasses to this visually impaired child.  And he puts them on, and he almost jumps out of the chair, looking across like Mom, I see you, I can see I can see that door. And it was just, there was such excitement in the room, the mother was in tears, and the doctor couldn’t believe it, because this is new technology. And my son was around the same age, when I watched the video, and you know, that was one of the life changing moments for me, I’m like, “Oh my God, you know, something we just build and delivered and have a profound impact on someone you know, is living without the gift of sight.” So that was the start of the journey. And, you know, I’m proud to say that now we have changed thousands of lives around the world with our product. And seeing the impact. And receiving these text messages, videos and pictures of people doing the things that they wanted to do, has been just, you know, so rewarding. So you know, it feels really good, making that type of a difference. And we have an amazing team that comes to work every day, generating more and more of these stories around the world.

Yolanda Fintschenko

That’s incredible. So you were able to take VR, augmented reality, virtual reality, VR technology, and completely solve an unmet need, which was for people with this extreme vision loss, like from macular degeneration, to go from not being able to see a loved one’s face not being able to write not being, and hands free to me really like a pair of glasses, just putting on glasses and and they went from basically blindness. And, and being connected back to the world visually, to their loved ones.

Ammad Khan   

That is correct. Yes. You know, when we talk about blindness, sometimes I’d like to clarify, when we talk about blindness, most people think that it’s like this:  you either have vision, or you don’t have any vision. There’s about 220 million people around the world who are considered blind. But when you look at the number closely, 80% of the 220 million people have some vision, right, but it’s just not enough to function everyday. And hence the term low vision. So they are legally blind, and they’ve got some vision. So the way that our technology is designed to work is we work with whatever vision you might have remaining. And then we enhance it to a degree where it becomes functional again. And that’s how we’re able to help.

Yolanda Fintschenko

That’s incredible. And that must be incredibly motivating for everyone at IrisVision. 

Ammad Khan  

It is.  I have to say that you know, the team that comes to work, all of the stories that I was sharing with you earlier. That’s what brings all of us to work every day and you know, continue to innovate and build a product and new features we’re trying to understand what else could we do in the next generation of the headset or next feature that we want to build.

Yolanda Fintschenko   

That’s incredible.

Lynn Naylor   

And, and many of those stories we can see on YouTube now, right? So I just want people to watch for them because they are stunning, and really special. It’s wonderful that you’re able to tell those stories, so many life changing stories.

Ammad Khan  

We have, you know, seen some of the seniors. And you know, first understanding what has taken place in their life, and then providing them the new tool. We also learned that getting somebody out of that depression, providing them a tool was also going to require a whole process to begin to re-engage them and bring them back out of depression. So our company has developed a whole process of rehabilitation. And we did this in a way, which was particularly helpful during the pandemic lockdown to where historically, the traditional devices required that a senior would have to come into a store or a rehabilitation center, and then work with the professional over multiple sessions. And as you can imagine, for somebody who cannot drive anymore was visually impaired would require a family member to transport you know, transport them back and forth. And that in itself is a burden for getting the necessary help. 

One of the innovation or part of the solution for IrisVision was we designed our entire platform in a way that you could ship a box with the headset anywhere in the world and work with the visually impaired person over the phone, wow, to show them how to use the technology while they are at home doing things that they want to be doing. Because as you can imagine, lighting can be different at a different facility and the conditions are different. But doing it at home was also very important. So that we can, you know, we can be more efficient, hence keeping the cost down for the technology overall, and getting them up and going at the pace that they’re willing to work. That’s, that’s a key part of the overall solution that we provide, through IrisVision.

 Yolanda Fintschenko   

I understand now why you focus on using the word solution because your innovation extends beyond the technology into the entire process. I mean, I come from a marketing background. So what we would call a customer experience, you’ve innovated around the entire customer experience, but it really I think, from a healthcare standpoint, translates to an overall improvement in outcome, right, and the health impact and outcome. So that’s, that’s an incredible insight that you and your team had, that it had to be more than a piece of hardware.

Ammad Khan  

Yeah. And let me share a story with you, I think that’ll help put the overall effort into perspective. So we talked about, you know, what’s missing, and you become visually impaired. We talked about a technology solution that can be universal and help with a variety of tasks in various settings inside and outside your house. And the need for providing training or rehabilitation, sort of like a regimen that goes along with all of this. 

We found that the people that we helped train, to start to be functional, again, was a group that was, you know, sort of really interested in helping out others. Now that they feel that they have found a new life and new way of, you know, re engaging with the world and working one such story within IrisVision as one of our head coaches, Myrna Wilkins, who was living with low vision, until she found IrisVision. We trained her, we provided the technology, it’s like, Oh, my God, this is a new life, I feel like I’ve been reborn, and I can do so many things that I never imagined I could do. So Myrna started coaching others, while working from home, she started helping other visually impaired people in different parts of the country, experienced the same, you know, coming back to life, sort of an experience with the IrisVision technology. And that became so successful, that we built an entire team of visually impaired folks who were IrisVision users originally, who started helping others with it. And Myrna became fully employed. And I’m, you know, really proud to share that we celebrated her fourth anniversary with IrisVision just a couple of days ago. That’s incredible. It’s the first job as a full time employee that she’s held in her life. And she makes such a huge difference in the team, every day, she’s full of energy and brings that energy, which drives the rest of the team in working with people all over the country. And it’s a team of visually impaired coaches that help many others around the country.

Yolanda Fintschenko  

So you’ve created a user community, and you’ve incorporated some of the user community into your company in order to really create a user driven experience. Exactly. That’s fantastic. Thank you. So one of the things you mentioned, and when we first started talking was that you’ve felt like you’ve been in the Tri-Valley for forever. So what brought you here and why did you stay and start your companies here?

Ammad Khan  

So when I finished college and moved to California, I had my first job in the Livermore area. It was a startup at that time. And while I, you know, worked in Foster City and on the peninsula, this area provided many of the Things that I was looking for, for raising a family, to schools with the housing at that time, was more affordable. And generally a really rich community. So my wife and I decided to make this our home. So when it came time to make a decision to start the business, I felt like we could offer the same type of benefits to folks who wanted to have local opportunities. And, you know, this, this was sort of emerging as its own little ecosystem, we could see the growth happening in the region. And we’ve been very pleased, we’ve been able to find the talent over the years in this region that wants to be close by, and have good work opportunities.

Yolanda Fintschenko  

That’s great. And have you found that by locating here, you were inspired to partly locate here to offer the same kinds of opportunities to the talent around you that has come to fruition? Did you find that you either could bring people here and they would stay here or that you could hire from, you know, the community that you’re located in?

Ammad Khan  

And so, since I’ve been here for almost a couple of decades, I want to say, there was a phase where, you know, when more growth was beginning to happen, you know, we definitely made a lot of progress during that time. But as of late, I think some of the other employers in the area would share the same concern that I have, that the hiring that we did over the last couple years. While the market was booming, just because of the cost of living in this area, many of the leaders that we’ve been wanting to hire, it’s been challenging to, you know, when they come in to do the survey, the cost of living has increased so much in the region right now. That’s something that, you know, I’m interested in working with the broader ITV team, very grateful to see all of the initiatives that are there. But I feel like that’s an area where we have to work together and maintain that balance of the quality of life and the cost of living in this region. So we can continue to attract high quality talent.

Yolanda Fintschenko  

So if I hear you correctly, when you started out, that kind of calculus you made about affordability and quality of life, talent, local and attractiveness to others, was really accurate. And with the increasing costs and the struggle that I think every city in California has had and delivering affordable housing that’s threatened. And in yours, you’re here to be part of the you know, you’re eager to work with someone like an ITV to, to help keep us on a good course.

Ammad Khan  

I think you summarized it really well.

Lynn Naylor 

And I just want to say there’s a whole community of CEOs and founders now in the region that are very willing and excited about leading on these issues, and standing up and saying, it’s time for us to be thoughtful and solve this problem. This is now a solution we need to find together. And we’re really grateful to Ammad and many other emerging companies and strong leaders who know what it’s going to take and have a vision for what the Tri-Valley can be in the decades ahead, especially as we talk about the 2040 plan and how we want the Innovation Hub to evolve. So it’s time for some of our leaders to step up. And we’re so grateful.

Yolanda Fintschenko  

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And for voicing it, too, because I think that’s something that everyone needs to hear to understand that this isn’t something that’s happening over there or to someone else, or you know, it’s something that we’re all experiencing, and there are a lot of impacts.

Ammad Khan  

Yeah, I think it’s great to see that we have successfully created a lot of opportunities in this region. It’s also important that we keep up with, you know, facilitating the growth in the region. And that requires active leadership. And so happy to see the initiatives that ITV has been leading. And I’m honored to be a part of the group that’s looking at those initiatives and bringing it in front of the decision makers so we can influence and keep up with the growth that the region is finding.  

Yolanda Fintschenko   

Yeah, well, that’s important leadership. So I think one of the reasons why we really want to invest in our community members, starting companies here is that you can invest your time in this, you, you are part of the community.  IrisVision is part of the community. And you’re, you know, you’re not, you’re not sitting in a two hour commute, wishing you could participate in some of these really important community issues and needs. And I think I think that is really important for us to recognize that, you know, part of why we have not just your intellectual capital for starting IrisVision, but your ability to help us on community issues is because you’re here and IrisVision is here.

Ammad Khan  

That is a very good point. Yes, that hour or two of commuting? You know, that same time can be spent exactly on the region and the development and innovation. Definitely.

Lynn Naylor 

Yeah. I think one of the other things I’d love to hear you talk about a mod is your, the spirit of collaboration that has driven the company from vendors that you’re working around the world, and you’ve been able to overcome some pipeline issues, just because you are a model collaborator. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Ammad Khan  

Certainly. So we’ve been very lucky. I think, again, the proximity of the region to the San Francisco Bay Area has been, I think, very important for our success, while operating out of the Pleasanton-Dublin area. You know, we formed some really powerful partnerships, whether it’s with the experts at Stanford, you know, driving the ideation funnel, that ultimately leads to innovation, or finding partnerships with the likes of Samsung over in Mountain View. And, you know, we shared what we were trying to do, and big names like Samsung, you know, responded to the mission that we have. And together, we, you know, design and develop the next generation headset that IrisVision is using now, we call it inspire all around, you know, getting the scientists, the vision scientists, and then the ophthalmologist and the optometrist, all of the eye care experts bringing them together. And then collaborating with the technology giants like Samsung, it took all of that to ultimately deliver the solution that is now helping thousands of people. When the company started, one of our big wins in the beginning was we were awarded a grant by the National Institutes of Health, we took that to start building a technology solution that would deliver the value that the consumer was looking for. So that grant tied us up with the Johns Hopkins team of scientists. So together, you know, we took the concept that we had, the technology that we were creating, and started working with the patients that were at the Johns Hopkins University, Wilmer Eye Institute, validating that the solution that we were building was delivering, you know, the fix or value for the consumer, going through that. And then building on that collaboration, including other experts that we had access to locally in this region, and the technology, all of that together, resulted in developing the award winning solution that we have now.

Yolanda Fintschenko  

So it sounds like collaboration was key from day one. And you’ve really kept that in your culture.

Ammad Khan  

That is a keyword, definitely.

Yolanda Fintschenko  

So what do you see as the future looking at the next five years? What is the future for you for IrisVision? And for these low, low vision solutions?

Ammad Khan  

That’s a good question. There’s more than 5 million Americans who are living with low vision. If we zoom out a little bit, looking at that population, there’s another 30 million Americans that have one of the three big chronic eye conditions that I mentioned earlier, which means that there is a bigger population that is at risk. So as a team when we sit down and we make plans for where we are going to focus next. When and what we’re providing is a product that helps at a later stage after you’ve had a vision loss, and we’re proud to be delivering that solution that is helping so many live a more functional life. We decided why not, you know, try to help people with a preventative solution that would help them stay sighted. So while keeping that mission in mind, we design and develop the platform to do the necessary vision testing, that can help a person much earlier in their journey, detect that something is going wrong, and get the treatment they need on time, so that they can stay sighted. Instead of having a vision loss incident, which is usually permanent. So I’m pleased to share with you that we launched our brand Radius XR, XR for eXtended Reality. Last month, in October, at one of the biggest eye care conferences, the American Academy of Ophthalmology. And Radius is, again, using virtual reality technology to do vision testing, in a much more comfortable and easy to use type of way. Because of the form factor, they’re just like glasses that you put on. And you can do a number of different vision tests on it. So an eye doctor can look at those results, and determine the risk, or the stage vision loss, or you know, or the level of vision that you have right now. And based on those results, they can determine next steps. That’s what we’re trying to do to help people open up access to vision care at a much, much earlier stage.

Yolanda Fintschenko  

So between these two solutions, it sounds like you’ve, you’ve extended what you’ve learned and from the technology and also from the need to diagnostics and through your new brand.

And I’m just really interested because, you know, I think everyone’s impacted by the threat of vision loss or vision, actual vision loss for our listeners, how do they get their hands on this? If they, if they feel or their loved one is. Could be at risk because of a chronic disease. How do they tap into the diagnostic?

And if they’re already suffering with low vision, how can they get an IrisVision solution? 

Ammad Khan  

So for IrisVision  the best way to  explore if IrisVision is the right solution for your loved one. They can go to IrisVision.com on our website and contact  one of the representatives.

Through that we have an assessment process which is free of charge.  They can, they will ask a series of questions, understanding  the level of vision loss and the goals that the person has and determine if, you know, we can help that person. And if so, the company offers a money back guarantee on the solution that is shipped right to your home. You work with one of our coaches that I mentioned                     and go through the process of  learning to, you know, do the tasks once again in your life, the activities of daily living. And if that works for you, wonderful. In some cases the vision loss is too great, or the person sometimes has comorbidities, some other complexities, movement challenges, et cetera. And sometimes it doesn’t work. So the company offers a money back guarantee where if it doesn’t work, they’re able to ship it back.

 Yolanda Fintschenko: Great. And the diagnostic.

Ammad Khan: Oh, so that’s just beginning.

 Yolanda Fintschenko: We know you mentioned you launched last month. I’m assuming next month.

Ammad Khan: We’ve, we’ve had a fantastic response to it. We’ve, we’ve already signed several deals with several  clinics, some here in the Bay Area, some in other parts of the country. So our goal is to provide the Radius system to as many eyecare providers across the country. Okay, so they can start inquiring  from their eye care provider.

I can, I can spend just a little bit of time to help your audience understand what is now being done that’s different from what was already out there. You know, traditionally most of us, you know, will go and see our primary care physician for regular checkups. Right. But we don’t necessarily go and go to an eye doctor all that often unless there’s something wrong in our vision. And when we do go in, because of the cost of the big and heavy equipment that you see at an eyecare    facility, some of those machines are like 30, 40, $50,000 each, or up to a hundred thousand dollars. And the  experience used to be that a technician would take you to the one system and assist you going through the whole process. And the next and the next they will do various different types of vision tests for you..  And the cost of that equipment is so great that only the  specialists or certain types of doctors would have it.  And it required a variety of different sorts of, I call them boxes sometimes, but you know, each is built for doing a certain type of a vision test.

What we tried to do with the Radius glasses, it’s a platform that has many different modalities, so we’re trying to combine the various different vision tests all into a singular headset. Plus. The way we have designed it, learning from our experience with the vision impaired community that it was important for, you know, the self-service and self-paced type of  experience. So  while patients are sitting in a waiting room waiting to see the specialist, sometimes that waiting can go on for 30 minutes to an hour. Yes. And sometimes even longer. They can put on their Radius glasses, grab the tablet that it connects with and start the process of engaging with the practice already. Yes. You know, talk about their intake, you know, the medical history and all of that on the tablet. Watch any related  messages from the doctor that could be recorded and presented in the glasses about the eye condition that they are in for and then take the vision tests for the, you know, the condition that they might be dealing with.  All of this while the clinic gets the doctor ready to see them. 

Yolanda Fintschenko Got it. 

Ammad Khan

So this way, instead of going around the whole clinic, one by one to various different pieces of equipment assisted by a technician, you’re able to do a lot of that work while, you know you would, we would sit in the waiting room playing Candy Crush on your phone.  It’s  more productive. So the clinics really like the idea because there’s a chronic shortage of  professionals  in this country. 

We have an aging population.  So the number of incidents of these diseases are only happening more and more each year,  and the number of eye care  professionals that we have is not growing proportionately. So the technology has to step in and provide more efficient ways of  helping manage the disease and the patient needs.

So that’s where Radius comes in and provides it in an affordable, easy to use, self-paced manner, you come in and get it done. So the overall experience becomes less painful for the patient. Hence they can do it more frequently and get that  awareness – the detection, the diagnosis  in a timely manner.

Yolanda Fintschenko

Right. And hopefully with  less of an upfront investment in equipment, it might be more affordable.

Ammad Khan

It is significantly different. So that’s a very good point,   Yolanda. We think as we go through this process, even the primary care physicians will be able to have a Radius XR type of system at their offices.

It was cost prohibitive in the past and also requires so much space at the office. Right. All of those big heavy machines. Right.   With Radius, I sometimes refer to it as your diagnostic system in a lunchbox, because it really is a small box that has the glasses and the tablet in it.   Here at the Radius team, we see these  kits showing up at your primary care physician. So if you’re in for your annual physical checkup right, you could take a couple minute test  just to make sure that your right, you know, vision is also checking in.

Yolanda Fintschenko

As you said, just in the while you’re waiting. Exactly. Yeah. It’s perfect 

So  I think what we want to leave everyone with is anything we didn’t ask that you think we should have? Any, any words you wanted   to leave the audience with?  Any new ventures you wanna promote we didn’t know about? Cause you seem, you seem like a springboard of new ideas. 

Ammad Khan

 Well, I, you know, I think  I, I really enjoy doing what I do and  having found a purpose-driven technology platform that is helping transform lives at various different stages has been what, you know, drives me every day to work.  When family members and friends ask the question about, you know, what to do and where to go in the career, my, my message  has been: if we can find something where, you know, the natural talents that we have and the passion that we have matches with a need in the market, that’s when the magic begins to happen. Then you proceed with collaborations and you start to build, you know, this, this snowball effect. And that’s what I am seeing happen with IrisVision. We, you know, we came up with an idea, it was a need in the market, we started attracting like-minded individuals., who all felt that we could rally around that mission. And then the rest of the things just started happening almost, you know, it was serendipity. I would go somewhere.NIH was willing to provide the funding, the Stanford and the Hopkins professor, when they saw like, yes, that’s a need and I feel passionate about it also, and the investors felt. Definitely an opportunity. And, and, and that’s how the magic started happening. But it had to start, you know, in a place where I felt like that’s a mission that resonates with me and I feel like I can make a difference in this area. And then the rest just happened very smoothly.

Lynn Naylor

So I have to say not only is Ammad a creative, passionate entrepreneur who’s incredibly successful, he’s also a great dad and we love that in the Tri-Valley and have really found some creative ways. I don’t know how he does all this. Every time I see him, I ask, how are you doing all of this? So you have some success with your family too. You get up in the morning and have breakfast together. You’ve found ways to do all this work and still have a great quality of life.

Ammad Khan

Yes. Keeping that balance is so important. Yeah, I have a, I have a whole routine.  It’s so important.  Having that breakfast moment, that’s something that my parents gave me. So, yes. You know, all of us.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I make it a point in the morning, you know, I go for a walk with my dog. It feels so good. 6, 6: 30 in the morning. I’m out every day.  We were talking about, you know, how can you balance all of it?  And a point that I share with my kids and friends also the routine has really been very, very helpful in keeping the mind in the right place. So I take my time in the morning, it’s a couple hours. But having clarity in the morning while I’m out on the walk, whether I’m listening to a podcast or one of my favorite books. Making a plan for the day and then coming in by that time, the kids are usually up.  I love to make breakfast.  So, you know, they take me up on that offer. Yeah. 50% of the time.   Having that moment in the morning with the family just gives me all of the energy to have, you know, a productive day.

Lynn Naylor

A secret to his success, which I love that you share so openly.

Yolanda Fintschenko: Yeah. Yes. The getting your energy from the people you love and starting your day out that way.   What a great piece of advice for all of us. Absolutely. 

So, Ammad, can you share any  stories about some of the people you work with and how you’ve had an impact together?

Ammad Khan: Certainly one of my favorite people was with IrisVision early on. So, imagine. You know, a founder working on a proof of concept. So as Frank and I were building the first version of  IrisVision, it was still sort of klugey and, but it, you know, demonstrated what the system is capable of doing. So we were looking for confirmation, validation  you know, talking to different people. So we shipped one of our systems over to the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind, and the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind is one of the most well known places that does a lot of work with low vision and blind rehabilitation. I got a call from their senior vice- president of rehabilitation, Tom Persky, and as I got on the phone, I still remember this moment, right.

Tom’s a big figure, very well known in low vision. He’s a person who has low vision himself, lost his sight at the age of 19 or 20. But continued, you know, with whatever was available back then to continue his education, completed graduate school and then made it his life’s mission to start helping to, to help others like him.

Incredible. And when Tom saw the first IrisVision system, I remember he calls me, he’s like, Ammad, this is something else. I’m like, oh my God. And, you know, he told  us what the system was able to do  and fill in the gaps. He loved  the way  we had configured the technology to really help even folks with the highest level of vision loss.

I invited Tom  to join the team at the time and, you know, join our mission of bringing this product out and help as many people as we could. So Tom Persky, who was almost ready to retire at the time.  He was so full of energy, seeing the potential in the technology that he accepted my offer, joined the team, and two weeks later we were in Australia doing a presentation together.

So we’re sitting down for a demonstration IrisVision in Australia and they invited this archeologist, also Tom,  who had just recently given up the work that he was doing  because he just could not see properly anymore. And we did the demo, a lot of emotions in the  room, and I still remember Tom, the archeologist, was in tears and he, after trying out the products, like, I’m taking this one home with me and I’m like, well, this is the only one that I have that I want to show a lot of people. And he is saying, no, no,  this is going to bring me back to work. And seeing some of those moments together, Tom [Persky]and I knew that we had a lot of work to do.

Just imagine this wonderful person, Tom Persky, seeing the impact and committed to the mission for his entire life, helping other people with vision impairments. Tom and I were on the road after that over the next few months, I think we traveled to 30 cities across the country. Wow.

Tom has been such a big force in making the impact with the technology. Suggesting so many of the features that we have built into the product and then designing that entire rehabilitation program that we discussed, which is vital for delivering a complete solution. Getting people like Myrna and others onboarded to the team and doing the whole thing.

 So we were talking about  collaboration.   What do you think of that? You know, finding somebody like Tom, pairing it up with the right technology and then  spreading the word across the country and around the world.

Yolanda Fintschenko

That’s amazing. It’s amazing how you’ve turned so many of your potential users into first advocates and then employees.

Probably the best, the best recruiting plan I’ve ever heard. 

Ammad Khan

 Yolanda, I wanna share another update with you. We talked about us going from providing  therapeutic help with the IrisVision solution to now expanding our mission to do preventative care. We found out yesterday that Radius has been named the winner of  the 2023 CES Innovation Award.

Yolanda Fintschenko

That’s incredible. Congratulations. Huge congratulations. For our listeners who don’t know, CES is the…?

Ammad Khan

Consumer Electronics Show. It’s one of the biggest organizations and biggest award show.

Yolanda Fintschenko

This is amazing. This is amazing.  Congratulations to you and the team.

Ammad Khan

Thank you. We’re delighted and very excited. We, you know, we’ve just come out the gates  and  we’re, we’re already seeing the market  take notice and  respond really positively.  

Yolanda Fintschenko

I think this is probably as good a place as any to stop. Ammad. Thank you so much. Ammad Khan founder and CEO of IrisVision, and just having launched Radius XR a vision diagnostic.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for being on the podcast.

Ammad Khan

Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me here.

Lynn Naylor

Thank you,  Ammad.