Company Profile:
ActiveProtective
ActiveProtective is a privately held wearable consumer device company using 3D sensors to determine what are allowable human motions, versus dangerous and injury indicating ones. Using their issued-patent methodology, they can intervene prior to injury via special clothing that deploys micro-airbags during a fall or crash, immediately prior to impact. Their clothing is focused on reducing the most damaging, life-altering, and expensive human injuries with applications for medical, sport, moto and military.
Q: Please tell us how your business idea was conceived. Was there an "aha" moment or did it evolve gradually?
A: After pulling countless late-night shifts as the head of two busy trauma centers in Philadelphia, our Chief Technology Officer Dr. Robert Buckman was moved by the astounding number of elderly people who were left fighting for their lives after sustaining hip fractures in falls. He sought out ways to identify those at highest risk, and then conducted an exhaustive study to identify the signatures of stable human motions versus uncontrolled descents. With those two issues addressed, he began working on a smart garment that could determine a fall in progress, and deliver protection just before impact. As technology improved, his approach became realizable. Contributions from other industries, namely automotive and smart phones, made it cost effective. This culmination today is allowing for the protection of people in ways never before possible.
Q: What's the most inventive, innovative, or disruptive aspect of your initiative?
A: The most inventive aspect of our technology is our ability to very accurately determine daily living activities or complex motions with a single wearable sensor. Our primary application is to protect people from avoidable injuries. However, the technology has many applications in and out of the medical field, including for sophisticated motion analysis, military uses, sports, and high-risk occupational protection.
Q: How will it help people live to their greatest potential or contribute to making the world healthier?
A: The key to inexpensive, healthy longevity is activity. Our bodies need to stay in motion, or they begin to fall apart in a very literal way. One of the topmost fears of our elderly population is of falling, which greatly diminishes their activity levels and invites morbidities. With our growing, aging population, the cost of hip fractures to our healthcare system will be unsustainable. Intelligent motion monitoring coupled with an intervention and protective technology to prevent fall injuries can provide the confidence to enable this population to remain active. We believe this type of protection should be standard-of-care for anyone with a double-digit probability of breaking a hip, and that there would be a double-digit return on the investment for doing so.
Q: Five years from now, what would you like to be able to say has been your most important contribution to health?
A: We would like to say we were one of the early innovators of the wearable sensor, age-at-home medical revolution, with an application that was able to save tens of thousands annually from preventable, tragic and expensive injuries, and that our innovation contributed to the solvency of Medicare.
Q: What single word or phrase best describes the culture of your startup and why?
A: Mettle. As a former Lieutenant Colonel combat surgeon, Dr. Buckman has uncommon determination. As a technologist, he carefully assembled a team of like-minded individuals to build out and execute the business plan. The determination and desire of the entire team to change how we care for and protect our elderly population from the preventable sets this group apart.