Aadeel Akhtar, a U of I grad (Ph.D. in Neuroscience and M.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering) who founded the company PSYONIC, was recently featured on Shark Tank, and received a $1 million investment from sharks Lori Greiner, Daymond John, and Kevin O’Leary for the Ability Hand™. The product “has a patented motor control and sensory feedback system that’s responsive and intuitive. The sensors can detect pressure when you’re gripping an object and send a vibration to your arm to communicate that sensation.”
Akhtar participated in the Gies College of Business iVenture Accelerator while he was a student here, and developed the prototype for the Ability Hand in 2014 while working with the Range of Motion Project in Ecuador.
From a Gies College of Business article about the appearance:
A year later, at the 2015 Cozad New Venture Challenge, PSYONIC won first place for a university-funded startup and won the Samsung Research Innovation Prize. Since formally launching the business in 2016, Akhtar has won the Illinois Innovation Prize, was named one of MIT Technology Review’s Top 35 Innovators Under 35, and the Ability Hand was named mHUB Product of the Year in 2020. Newsweek has also named Akhtar as one of the Top 50 Innovators in America.
You can read more about the deal at CNBC, and watch the episode on ABC.