 Aloha everyone and welcome to Hawaii, the state of clean energy. This show is sponsored by the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. We have a great show for you today. Fantastic technology coming out of the University of Hawaii by our up and coming young engineering students who've really invented a fascinating machine to help people who are challenged and walking in wheelchairs. This is like the end all and be all of wheelchair assistance. So I'm really pleased to have Austin Yoshino who is the inventor, founder and CEO of this startup company and Jillian Kuba who is the medical lead who assists in supporting the medical aspects of this invention. So first of all, give us a little bit of your background, Austin, where are you from? So I graduated from high school, I'm a fourth year mechanical engineering student for the University of Hawaii. Right. Okay. And when are you going to graduate? I'm expected to graduate in the fall of 2019. Okay. And so from there, I'm using this time to gauge the potential of this company and if I have something to start off with then this is what I'll do my future endeavors in. Awesome. And Jillian, tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I grew up here. I'm a third year pre-medical student at UH Minoa and I joined the team because I really believe in what he's doing with this engineering aspect of helping kids with cerebral palsy. I think that's awesome. Awesome. That's really great. So the title of this is called the Gate Trainer and before we get going, I just want Jillian to tell us, she's the medical scientist, what do we mean by gate? It's not like a gate gate, it's something else, right? Right. So it's gate, G-A-I-T and what that basically means, your kind of movement, walking. So the gate trainer is designed to help people with their walking, their gate. Okay. And it's gyroscopically controlled so you don't just fall over. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. So Austin produced a really great video. It's about three minutes. And I like us to run that now so it tells a really good overview of what he's doing. And then we'll get into some more of the detail with a set of slides, it's not death by PowerPoint. I hope not. So if you could start the video now, that'd be great. Good evening. I am Austin, I'm Chen-Yong, a fourth year engineering student. This is my invention. Here's my little brother, Grant. He loves to be around family and friends and all the action is. He also has a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, a condition that can make this difficult. Grant relies on a medically fitment called a gate trainer. A gate trainer is meant to improve walking ability. The amount of practice time ranges from five to 45 minutes and is limited by discomfort. This is a sketch of my proposed device, the G-Trainer. My goal is to acquire a strategic partnership within existing gate trainer manufacturing company after I develop a work in Prozac. I'd like to thank everyone who supported me along this journey. I'm hoping that you will support my goal in business of pumping up. Hey, what's up? I am Austin Yoshino, Grant's older brother, the founder and CEO of G-Trainer LLC. My name is Everdolmeson and I'm the CEO of G-Trainer LLC. According to CerebralPalsy.org, there are currently 760,000 individuals with cerebral palsy. About half of those people require a gate trainer to walk. So as you can see in this design, it falls a very wide base which makes it impractical when using in the house or going through school or going through grocery stores. We support the underarms with the supports that go in which are very uncomfortable positions to be in for a long extended period of time. Current gate trainers resemble a four-wheeled car. What we're aiming to do is to take that and turn it into a motorcycle. So the way it works is there will be two wheels in tandem. Each wheel will have an inner spinning disc. As this disc spins, it creates toppling resistant forces which helps the wheel to self-stabilize. This will eliminate previous physical barriers to participating in life activities such as household chores, socializing in school, and playing sports. We are entering our company into another business competition through the University of Hawaii in order to obtain funding for a full-scale prototype in manufacturing costs. G-Trainer really has a wide range of applications and we're only scratching the surface. My grandpa passed away after suffering a stroke and he spent almost nine months in a rehabilitation center learning to walk again. With a product like G-Trainer, he could have done that in the comfort of his own home with a lot more freedom. This company is dedicated to my little brother, Brad. His growth into maturing into a fine young man has not been without struggles. As an engineering student, I've taken upon myself to improve the lives of him and others with similar needs. Follow our journey on social media and check out our website to learn more about our product. If you are interested in helping us make a difference in aiding those with disabilities, please contact me on my email or go through our website. The first place winner taking home $2,000 is G-Trainer. Hello, and I really told a great story of starting from why we're building this device or why you invented this device. Right now I understand that you're trying to raise some money for this. Correct. How are you doing that? We started our crowdfunding campaign through GoFundMe. We're looking at a goal of $5,000 which will help us get to the point where we can pitch this product to a manufacturing company. I understand you're using some high-tech technology to build your first prototype. What is that? How does that work? Right now we're making a small-scale prototype using a 3D printer and just sitting in the middle of parts. We're constructing this prototype to have a working device that we can pitch to a company. How big is that? The working prototype will be about this big. How high? Approximately this high. So you're going to have a model of a person sitting in the chair? Yeah. So they can really understand the concept because it's not that easy a concept to understand when you look at the drawings and there's a gyroscope which automatically is weird like magic, kind of a magic technology. So let's have the first slide up please. Here we go. So here's your brother? Yes, my little brother. Brant? Brant. Okay. So the video covered some of the issues with the existing technology but could you go into it a little bit in more depth of how uncomfortable this is for Brant? Current gate trainers are just very large in nature and that's because they need the extra material to support weight distribution otherwise the person will tip over. And so while it may help him walk and he can walk in it, the places he can use it are very limited. For example, he can't really use it in the house because we don't have a lot of space. You can't really use it in grocery stores or even during school rounds it's a little hard with everyone walking by. Also if you look at how he's being hosted up in this device, he's being upheld in the underarm and groin areas which are not very comfortable places and so for our design, the gyroscopic technology helps to self-stabilize the wheels which can allow us to reduce the frame size and we chose a vest style harness so that his pressure will be supported throughout the body instead of just in these three points. So how would he actually, somebody still have to pick him up and put him in? So you have to almost be like Steve Reeves, I mean he's going to be a heavy guy. Yeah, yeah, thankfully for my family my dad is really tired to load for that but we are looking at getting lifts and so there are lifts out there that can help transport him from the bed to the walker to the wheelchair to the dinner table. So Gillian I'm going to put you on the spot, can you comment a little bit about on the health side, why it's so good for people to to walk? Yeah, so especially for cerebral palsy which is a movement disorder, usually children get this at birth or in their prenatal stages so when they're in the womb or shortly after they're born and so what it causes is muscle atrophy, muscle tension, muscle tone, it's called spasticity where your muscle tissue actually shortens and that is that can be very painful, very limiting for the children and of course people with cerebral palsy they they range in their motor functions, it varies from person to person but it's really important for them to get walking in just so that they can maintain their muscle length and their mobility and their range of motion too and also it's just great for the children in the sense of like their socialization, being able to go outside, go out to places with their family, it kind of gives them a sense of more independence as well which can be really even more important than you know the medical physical aspects. So how many times a day would they exercise? Is it like a one day, one day, one time a day event or can you do space it out over the course of a day? I think that that really depends on the child just because each child's situation is kind of can vary greatly from person to person. So let's pull up the next slide please. So Austin tell us about these other clue geologists here. So these are current gate trainers on the market. As I was saying before they all follow a very similar design that as you can see the bases are all very wide. The most popular one is probably the Riften, that would be the biggest company but even that design is a little on the bulkier side. And so how would yours reduce the bulkiness? I mean we just still have those outrigger wheels or would it just be this little magical wheel that stays on the side? So it would be two wheels in tandem and it would be they would be walking as they shadow the device and so it would be as wide as their feet. Oh really? I think we have a diagram of that. So next slide please. Oh we'll talk about how many people are afflicted with this. You want to talk about the market? I mean I don't want to call it the market size. That sounds a bit complicated but you know these are human beings so tell us a little bit about the all. Well actually cerebral palsy is the most common disability among children, motor disability among children and so around 800,000 kids in the U.S. alone are diagnosed with cerebral palsy and then so that's maybe like one in 323 children in the world according to the CDC. Wow that's a lot. It is. I'm surprised that the percentage is... It's a lot bigger than people are aware of. Right. So part of this project too is also being able to raise awareness for cerebral palsy and conditions like it those movement disorders as well. So it's hard on the families too I mean. Yes for sure. Tell us about some of the issues you know you're being a family member you know that impact you guys. Um well generally I mean there is just struggles with mobility you know getting our brother into the car out of the car into his devices it puts a lot of strain not just on him but on us. Right. And so this device I'm hoping will help to eliminate some of these barriers. Okay let's have the next slide please. Okay I think this is showing existing technology. Right yes. It's pretty agricultural I would call it. It's not like very high-tech. It's very mechanical in a world where we have electric wheelchairs and almost everything's electric now. It's weird that no one had... I can't believe somebody hadn't thought of this. Yeah. So why did you think of the gyros that because you see the you know the guys going up and down diamond head what they call those two wheel things. You're right that's exactly what it is it was a I was thinking about these those hoverboards that just came popular all of a sudden. Yeah. And so I was thinking you know that has to have some sort of stabilizing technology in it because when I wrote it for the first time I got it you know it was pretty easy it was wasn't too hard I thought why not combine that with the walker. Yeah so when was your your recap moment did you have one. Yes yes. Tell us about that. Huh so I was thinking of I've been a couple years ago I started thinking of you know my knowledge as an engineering student and how I could help out my little brother you know something I've always wanted to my whole life and I guess one night I was just cruising with my one of my homies and I just thought of it you know it was just a random thought I was thinking I was we had just finished playing with a little hoverboard and so I was thinking like you know just just fresh off of that you know combining that with a walker I thought you know maybe this might work so I wrote down in my phone the next morning I like like looked at it I started doing some research on the internet and I found out that they had used a gyroscopic wheel to replace training was on a bike. Right. And so that company had funded a lot of money to Kickstarter unfortunately they crashed and burned like in 2013 or whatever but you know I thought that if that technology works for for replacing that you know why can't I use why can't I use it for this too. Awesome well we're gonna cut to a break believe it or not we've already gone through about 15 minutes I told you yeah so let's cut to the break and we'll be back in about a minute. Okay sounds good. Aloha I'm Yukari Kunisue the host of Konnichiwa Hawaii Japanese talk show on Think Tech Hawaii. Konnichiwa Hawaii is all Japanese broadcast show and it streamed live on Think Tech at 2 p.m. every other Monday. Thank you so much for watching our show we look forward to seeing you then I'm Yukari Kunisue mahalo. Aloha I'm Dave Stevens host of the Cyber Underground this is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that's just kind of scare you out of your mind so come join us every week here on Think Tech Hawaii dot com 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube all our shows will show up and please follow us we're always giving you current relevant information to protect you keeping you safe. Aloha. Okay here we are back from our short break and I have Austin and Jillian here talking about Austin's awesome invention at the University of Hawaii I always like to pitch that the University of Hawaii is doing things that solves people's problems today and not like 25 years from now so well done Austin for getting out there and we want to show off the University and that we're doing things that the local community supports the University you're gonna get some benefit out of it so and especially you know the impact on the families it's not just the actual person who's in the has that has a cerebral palsy it's like the whole family is affected by this so like the multiplier effect is like what depending on your family size could be five six eight people by you know one person so this is awesome that you're doing this so let's get the next slide up please so let's just we'll work our way through these slides and you can describe this technology which is like I said super cool so okay talk about gyroscope so gyroscopic technology is or in the wheel anyway is going to be an inner spinning disc and so as this inner disc spins it creates a resistant toppling forces and so to help keep this wheel upright which will attach to the frame help keep their frame upright and so the easiest way to conceptualize it is it's very similar to a toy top works as you spin this toy top the faster you spin it the harder it is for it to come off balance so how do you spin the wheel do you have an electric motor yes integrated in this and where you get the power for that so the power will be hooked up to a battery okay and about how long does a battery last so we have we are going to figure it out when we upscale the model to be real life-size okay but the goal is to make it last for at the very least an hour okay that's pretty cool I'll have to talk to you about hydrogen after the show yeah we can increase that by maybe a factor of three or four that'll be great I have to get my hydrogen plug in so next slide please okay go go for it so there are some of the current applications of this technology as I was saying before in the gyroscopic bike this front wheel is used to replace training boats so when you first learn how to ride a bike you don't need training wheels because this will help keep you up right in the solar wheel which is something you may see people riding around in the streets nowadays it's used to help keep someone on the wheel and so in a in a conceptual car it's used in a very similar way so if somebody accidentally leans over I mean how much force can it actually keep somebody from falling over is there enough force in this thing to keep that person upright so in terms of the engineering when we make the small scale project we will test the forces but before we put something on the market obviously we're gonna run some sort of analysis on it to make sure that there is no possible way and any and the worst case scenario they will fall over that's our number one priority is making the making sure the person in this device is safe so you're gonna be making these in different sizes I mean there's big people and small people yes yes so our goal is for children just because in their growing up or in their adolescent stage they want you want to get them familiar with the device as much as possible because if they don't have access to this when they're an adult it's too late it won't be it they won't be able to do the motor functions to walk okay wow okay interesting next slide please so what are we seeing here so this is a side-by-side comparison of the current and what our device is gonna be it's a little easier to conceptualize in the models we have in the video the video was made after the slideshow and so it's yeah but as you can see the form factor is significantly reduced as it's as wide as their feet sense so can they actually they have to have a frame holding them yes they do and so now that'll be the best style harness which would be supported through a thing in the back in the back okay I understand that and what what's what else does the frame have in it I mean the vest is it just a harness to keep them in there or does it have sensors and things like that so initially it'll be a harness in my expertise of the engineering side it's best for me to work on the frame and some working on constructing that making sure the frame is solid and won't tip over and then as we advance in the project you know we have Jillian who's a medical her medical expertise and we're looking to add physical therapy or therapists to the team to help with the walking mechanics and making sure they're supported correctly Jillian what kind of things can you do with the vest and all the system that provides that kind of you know physical therapy um honestly that's what we're trying to kind of work through right now as far as the vest goes just because we want to make sure that what we're making is going to be you know beneficial and work for each patient so we are looking to expand our research team currently so I'm not sure as of yet okay so like can you like put devices that stimulate the the muscles in the leg for example and are triggered by an electric signal or I've heard of devices like that right now it was actually interesting because I was I just saw something that went on the market and into rehabilitation facilities and it's kind of like these robotic legs that are you know help people to walk an exoskeleton yeah an exoskeleton and that was really interesting but I guess for our gate trainer it would be more so for you know to get the motion in and not so much to correct their gate okay yet perhaps future iterations of this device will include an exoskeleton yeah okay cool next one please okay this is what we're talking about product expansion right yes so I could see a great part from old people like me getting there those are the guys on the walker wounded warriors for example or the Department of Defense should be very interested in this kind of a technology have you talked to anybody yet or that would you know be interested in this not yet because my current focus is on pseudo-policy patients okay but once we have this sort of figured out then we'll look at possible expansions okay cool um so tell me about the timeline first of all you're trying to raise money on what crowdfunding on craft through crowdfunding through go fund me and you're looking for how much approximately five thousand dollars and how can people donate to your crowdfunding so you can go to our website g-trainer llc.com and one of the tabs they'll say contribute and so you can either send us an email if you would like to help out or you can go directly to there's a link directly to the go fund me site okay and so they have to raise all the money first before you get it correct and you have to meet some deliverables is that how it works um crowdfunding i believe it's just donations donation based yeah okay fine um so i understand that you entered a contest at the university yes tell us about that so i entered this concept through uh paces breakthrough innovation challenge but where i gave uh this slideshow was my pitch and so i gave it to a lot of um professionals in the business side yeah and they're putting first place that was nice very good and what was the prize the prize is two thousand dollars okay and so with that money we used it to pay for the llc fees and the um other the patent fees and i bought a 3d printer which is what i'm currently using to help prototype okay i thought the uh had some 3d printers but i guess maybe they're not big enough they do they do and i am i am using the resources but for me personally it helps to have a 3d printer in my house because i'm constantly around the clock 3d printing you know i'll be up to like three in the morning just working on this i'll watch tv and print and you know and so that it really helps to have something in my own personal space admire dedication so this is like a new steve jobs right hopefully you're gonna invent this new thing that's going to take their work to take the world by storm uh that's great so um my other questions are is like uh what's been the response so far from the community how long how long have you been up on the on the site for crowdfunding and what's been the response to date so the site we actually just launched today and the video that the video that is shown is something that we're planning to launch this week okay and so we just finished filming it last month and so we just are this is something very new but uh in terms of i've been throwing a lot of this on my instagram you know that's how people can keep tabs if you like to follow me it's at austin.yoshino and so you can i kind of like post my stories of what i'm doing a lot of you know like the 3d printing and updates on the project and so i've been getting a lot of good response people love the story of course but i think they like my determination and my grind you know i'm constantly working on this is something that has become almost the first priority the equal to school of course but and how's the university supported your efforts what what have they actually done to help you it's great um so i first started the research through a um mechanical engineering 696 course through dr scott miller and so i had a team that helped me kind of helped define the problem and what what are parameters that needs to be done that this gate training is to fix and then from there i took it through uh paces business program and pace has been amazing there i'm constantly getting emails i actually got this interview through pace but i'm constantly getting emails about you know these events that should tend to a lot of networking events i went to the east meets west conference for free that was really great there was a lot of great speakers there and a lot of good insight that i kind of gained and a lot of business marks i'm not a business student and so but um you know they make it really easy to learn you're learning business through the school of hard rocks yeah exactly yeah it's the best school there is so what kind of training did pace give you i mean just like top level stuff just so the audience understands what what a great resource that is so through the pace program they gave me two business coaches um and so they were will they help me out in terms of making my slideshow and helping to define the market um like i said just a bunch of resources they have this space study room which is you know phenomenal they have a really fast wi-fi like really cool chairs you know very like up-to-date modern type of stuff so you might want to consider accelerate uh i think you said you applied for them but you didn't quite make it this yeah this term they were looking for a little more traction and so the next time we apply we're going to have a prototype ready right and along with the team because when i had files i applied by myself and so i think that was one of the things that you know it was a little bit of a i actually took their course oh i support a friend of mine who uh and we got accepted so i wanted uh it's really a great course so i'm going to put in a plug for accelerate uh okay because i come i came out of business i'm not an academic myself so i was i am still arrogant but i thought i knew everything i knew there was no one i didn't and don't and uh excellent course so well done so your pitch was really well done that's kind of the things they they teach at accelerate uh plus they put you together with a venture capitalist teach you how to raise money yes yes about getting your patents in place and how you protect your ip all that kind of stuff so it's really good so what's next so next we are entering a business plan competition where it'll be a little more on what we've done since the innovation challenge yeah and um it's going to be me jillian and everton who is the co of the company he's a double major in marketing and entrepreneurship so he'll really help out in those so we saw him on the movie right yes he was he was the other one in the movie you guys are all dressed up in your shirts and ties yeah like we like to keep things professional yeah very good so they say in hawaii you only wear a jacket and tie when you're going to the court building absolutely not the case so um we're gonna wrap up now so i just like to ask you um you know do you have any partying things that i missed that you would like to the people and the audience out there to know about let me ask jillian jillian first i don't let you do much of the talking so oh no um i just really hope people can support this innovation this idea because i think that it could really potentially help a lot of people and you know from the medical side i think it's going to be a great asset and it's very beneficial to the community awesome and the inventor and CEO and founder what do you got to say i guess wow we've talked a lot um if you'd like to help out please reach out to me we are open to any suggestions any resources what um i guess just for me this company is a little more than just a product you know it's it's almost a double edged sword where i can make something to help people but also bring awareness because i mean i grew up in a family where my little brother was sort of pausing so i was always surrounded by it but i'm starting to realize that that's not true for everyone and so if i can help to bring awareness of the issue and you know potentially help research or whatever it may be to make their lives better i would love to do so so i'll wind it up i think you have a real winner here this is great technology i'm fascinated by it so uh we can talk later um everybody i got wraps up our show for today and we'll be back next week with another interesting uh set of uh uh interviewees and um so thank you very much guests thank you so much thank you for having us thanks for coming along thank you so much thank you so much awesome awesome work very good