Two outstanding UC Santa Cruz affiliates, Aviv Elor and Nada Miljkovic, have been chosen as finalists for the Sixth Annual Santa Cruz Works Titans of Technology, an event that honors industry professionals who have contributed substantially to the growth of the local technology and entrepreneurial community. The 2022 Titans of Tech will be honored at tomorrow’s awards ceremony at the Santa Cruz Kuumbwa Jazz Center.
Elor, who earned a bachelor’s degree in robotics engineering and a doctorate. degree in computer media from UC Santa Cruz, is one of the three co-founders of Immergo Labs, the world’s first virtual and interactive telehealth platform for physiotherapy. Immergo uses artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) to integrate telehealth capabilities and improve the accessibility, experience and accuracy of remote physiotherapy care. With just a VR headset, the platform connects patients and therapists in the same virtual room, as if they were interacting live in person, allowing the therapist to track movement and range of motion and provide feedback in real time.
Immergo Labs, which is based in Santa Cruz, has entered into several industrial and academic partnerships and recently received a national science foundation Small Business Innovation Phase 1 grant to further develop and test their prototype. Immergo’s beta platform will launch next month for users on their waiting list. The team plans to launch their product to the public by the end of 2023.
Elor’s areas of expertise include Human-Computer Interaction, Immersive Media, Wearable Robotics, Computing, User Experience and Emerging Technologies, with a focus on iSTAR, Immersive Systems Towards Assisting Reality, Recovery , and Rehabilitation. He has authored more than 20 publications and received eight scholarships and awards during his academic career at UC Santa Cruz.
Miljkovic is a UCSC alumnus, artist, educator, and entrepreneur. For over seven years, she taught several undergraduate entrepreneurship courses at Crown College, UCSC. She is also a program manager for UCSC Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIED), an industrial and university hub that promotes teaching, research and the development of inclusive innovation and entrepreneurship.
In 2020, Miljkovic co-founded GetVirtual, an internship program that matches students with local businesses to support their transition to online mining, amid the detrimental effects of COVID-19 on in-person business operations. The program allows students to gain real-world experience and service learning credits, while local businesses get the website development and software support they need to offer their services online. In addition to GetVirtual offered as an in-person course at Crown College, called Crown 95: Get Virtual Sales Supportit is now offered entirely online through Coursera, expanding the community engagement program to students across the UC system.
Another 2022 Titan of Tech, Leila Takayama, taught at UC Santa Cruz as an associate professor of computer media before returning to the industry this year. Takayama specializes in human-computer interaction and human-robot interaction (HRI). She is VP of Design and HRI at Robust.AI, where AI, robotics and human-centered design are combined to create collaborative mobile robots for increased workforce productivity. ‘work.
Also recognized as Titans of Tech are: Allison Steitz, Head of Growth and Innovation at Paystand; Bates Marshall, CEO and co-founder of Ambient Photonics, Inc.; Chris Bley, co-founder and director of Monterey Bay DART and founder of AirSpace Integration; Cindi Busenhart, Founder and CEO of MERGE4; Joshua Resnick, CEO/CTO at Parallel Flight Technologies; Stacy Nagel, people program manager at Google; and Will Wiseman and Alba Forns, co-founders of Climatize.
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