Pat Antaki (seeBOOST) on Becoming an Olympian at 42 and Giving Sight to the Visually Impaired

08/25/20 • 75 min

Pat Antaki is the founder and CEO of seeBOOST, a company creating a prescription glasses solution for people with vision impairment. The device incorporates an optimized, video pass-through AR system over one eye of the glasses.

Pat is a former MIT grad with a long history in microelectronics design and engineering, including spending several years working with industry expert, Karl Guttag.

These days Pat is committed to improving the quality of life for millions of people with vision impairment due to Macular Degeneration and Diabetes. But a few years back, he took a detour from his career as an engineer and entrepreneur. As he was entering his 40s, Pat set his sights on becoming an Olympic athlete and participating in the 2006 Torino Winter Games.

In this conversation, we talk through his mindset as he embarked on his Olympic adventure, including his work on microdisplays at the turn of the century.

Pat goes on to describe his decision, his preparation, and some challenging experiences on his road to the Olympics to compete in the Skeleton. It’s a really great story where his technology innovation plays a key role.

We also talk about the impetus and focus of his work at seeBOOST, including some of the design tradeoffs and lessons learned in bringing the product to market. It turns out, aesthetics matter, even when the device is so critical, users can’t see these words without it.

You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.

Pat is a former MIT grad with a long history in microelectronics design and engineering, including spending several years working with industry expert, Karl Guttag.

In this conversation, we talk through his mindset as he embarked on his Olympic adventure, including his work on microdisplays at the turn of the century.

You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.

Previous Episode

Christina Heller (Metastage) on Capturing the Humanity of a Live Performance for AR & VR

Christina Heller is the CEO of Metastage, an XR studio that brings live performances into digital worlds through volumetric capture and complementary tools.

The resulting 3D content can be experienced in augmented reality using mobile phones or high-end AR headsets, or using 3D displays. Metastage uses the Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture system and is located in Los Angeles.

Prior to leading Metastage, Christina was the CEO of VR Playhouse, an immersive content company based in Los Angeles. She is a recipient of the Advanced Imaging Society's Distinguished Leadership in Technology Award, and was named in the Huffington Post as one of 5 women changing the virtual reality scene. She has a long history in immersive media, having contributed to over 120 immersive projects. Christina comes from the world of journalism, radio, and television.

In this conversation, we dig into volumetric capture in general, and Metastage in particular. We explore a couple of the projects she and her team have done, along with some of the challenges and highlights along the way.

We discuss how people get to experience the end result, and the impact of the underlying capture technology. Christina also shares a new initiative to make it easier for creators to leverage volumetric content.

Christina share’s some of the lessons she’s learned from being an entrepreneur, including a lesson she picked up when she was young. She discovered the importance of envisioning the end state, and using that vision as a key motivator, while also recognizing the end result may look very different.

We go on to talk more broadly about trends in immersive content.

It’s worth noting this conversation was recorded in mid April, 2020, a few weeks after California issued its first “shelter-in-place” order in response to COVID-19. Some of the conversation reflects the newness of the crisis at the time.

You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.

Next Episode

Remi Del Mar (Epson) on Zen and the Art of Fit, Form, and Function for AR Glasses

Remi Del Mar is the senior product manager responsible for Epson’s visual displays and Moverio AR glasses.

Remi has been at Epson for almost 5 years. Previously she worked at BitTorrent and spent nearly 8 years at Logitech working on a number of different products, including on an early exploration in AR.

She brings a deep passion for the art of product management, of delivering a product that consumers truly love.

In this conversation, Remi explores some of the key use cases she’s seeing for the Moverio AR glasses, including uses around flying drones, remote assistance, education, HR, entertainment, and even art.

We talk through some industry projections, and discuss what’s necessary for AR glasses to breakthrough to ubiquity. In addition to wearability and interoperability, Remi goes on to describe the importance of capability and privacy.

She also talks about the challenges and responsibilities of being a good hardware product manager, as well as a couple of breaks she took during her career.

You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.