A Tampa health tech company is partnering with a Johns Hopkins artificial intelligence lab and adding the head of the lab to its C-suite.
Sensie, which uses smartphone sensors to measure a user’s emotional state, has hired Joshua Vogelstein as its “chief intelligence wizard,” which Sensie CEO Michael Dannheim said is equivalent to a chief AI officer.
Vogelstein heads up a biomedical AI lab at the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins and will bring up to nine of his Ph.D. students full-time to Sensie.
“Having spent nearly 20 years doing academic and medical research on brains and behavior, I believe that the Sensie team and technology will empower each of us to be responsible for our own mental wellness, prevent debilitating mental disorders, relieve the global burden of disease from mental health and enrich our lives,” Vogelstein said in a statement.
Sensie uses smartphone sensors to track movement and muscle tension as the user reacts to thoughts and spoken words. It is available as an app and has patented and patent-pending technology.
The app has the user flick their wrist three times while holding their phone, which measures muscle tension. The technology measures if there is “stress” or “no stress” and then takes the user through several wellness techniques. There are breathing techniques, “heart speak,” which is guided through posture, and “feeling both sides,” or what the user is feeling and what they want to be feeling.
The partnership will enable the expansion of Sensie’s AI sensing abilities and also expand into the wearables sector of the wellness technology industry.
With the new partnership, Dannheim said the company plans to license its algorithms in the future to health and wellness applications.
“Joshua and the Hopkins lab will help Sensie scale our AI detection and motion-based biomarkers for cognitive and emotional well-being, enabling billions of people to access personalized care and stay healthy longer via the device they own,” Dannheim said in a statement.
Dannheim is a longtime entrepreneur and was a Miami resident before making a move to Tampa. He previously told Tampa Bay Inno he could see the company going public in the next five to seven years, with options to be acquired or go public through an initial coin offering also being considered.
“We have a team very passionate about this whole project, and we think the tools of empowerment to help people thrive is a boundless opportunity,” he said.
