![\"\"](\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2226\/Momentum-Chan-Young-Koh-v07_edited.jpg\")
\u201cIt\u2019s not AI, it\u2019s SI,\u201d he quips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s been helped along the way by RISE-UP (Regional Innovation by Scaling Entrepreneurship via University Partnerships), a unique program by the U.S. Office of Naval Research to help students create companies to address real-world challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Started in 2022, the program is a partnership between URI, the University of Hawaii, the University of Alaska\u2014three states with a strong naval presence. It includes a one-year fellowship called Patents2Products, which connects students to faculty and industry mentors to help launch their ideas. A semester-long course called Ideation Studio, teaches essentials to help students develop a business plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cURI helped me immensely at every point in the process,\u201d Koh says, \u201cfrom conjecturing the idea to the changes I\u2019ve made along the way. I\u2019m the kind of person who can go down every rabbit hole. URI helped me stay focused on my goals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Initially, Koh envisioned a system that would collect data and bring them back to a central command center for analysis. Realizing that would be inefficient, however, he has shifted gears to a model that would constantly monitor sidewalks and feed into an app in real-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That change in focus caused him to reconceive his target customer to include not only municipalities, but everyday people including runners and wheelchair users who can use it to re-route their course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has been testing a prototype, adapting a microcomputer unit equipped with LIDAR and infrared sensors and printing a 3-D casing that can be attached to an autonomous robot, hoping to have a demo version by spring he can showcase to municipal officials. In the future, he says, the device could potentially be made smaller and lighter to be carried by an aerial drone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Koh hopes to become a professor after earning his Ph.D. this spring, while continuing to develop the sidewalk intelligence system into a commercial product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cResearch at URI has been a joy for me,\u201d he says. \u201cURI places such a strong emphasis on helping students become better researchers and turn their ideas into practical, marketable solutions. RISE-UP helped me gain the confidence to reach out and share the vision I have for this project and carefully improve it to better accommodate the group I am trying to help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that goal, Koh is joined by another RISE-UP participant, Charles Johnson BA\/BS\u201998, who participated in the program as an alum, and has been working on a video game controller for people with disabilities. After observing his cousin, who was born with one hand, struggle to play a game on Xbox, he found that current one-handed controllers were clunky and expensive, and became determined to create an elegant and affordable alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Johnson, an education and history major at URI who has taught in Providence schools, 3-D printed a prototype. RISE-UP mentor Joe Loberti BS\u201988, MBA\u201990 connected him with a Rhode Island\u2013based manufacturer, International Precision Assemblies, with factories in the Philippines that were able to turn it into a product.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cThe RISE-UP classes have been phenomenal,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cThey\u2019ve taught me how to write a pitch, understand legal aspects and taxes, figure out a go-to-market strategy\u2014 everything somebody without a business degree would need to start a business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2023, Johnson received a boost when he won the $100,000 prize from Rhode Island Business Competition for his company, Nhuad Controllers, named in homage to a one-armed Celtic warrior, allowing him to start production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So far, he\u2019s sold several hundred controllers at a price of $199. He\u2019s now hoping to find an investor who can help him take the product to scale, putting in an order of 1,000 controllers or more to help bring the cost down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to video games, he would like to find alternative uses for the technology and has proposed using the controller for everything from piloting drones to controlling home electronics and lighting systems. Johnson has also spoken with another company about using the controller to pilot undersea robots, and occupational therapy nonprofit Respawn, which is exploring bringing it into hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While all of these uses are enticing, Johnson says the most satisfying part of creating the company has been receiving joyful messages from users all over the world who are able to play \u201cI\u2019ve heard from a woman from Australia whose son is about to have his arm amputated, and a gentleman from Canada who has cancer and can\u2019t wait to play video games,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cStories like that,\u201d he says, \u201cdefinitely hit close to home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Through the RISE-UP program, a URI doctoral student and alum are creating products to help people with disabilities. By Michael Blanding When he first arrived in the U.S. a decade ago, Chan Young Koh Ph.D. \u201926 developed a habit of walking as a way to reduce stress and loneliness. \u201cI walk around the city all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5436,"featured_media":5745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-momentum-spring-26-body"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5436"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6762"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6912,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6762\/revisions\/6912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}“URI places such a strong emphasis on helping students become better researchers and turn their ideas into practical, marketable solutions.”<\/blockquote>Chan Young Koh<\/cite><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n
their favorite games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n“I want to focus on something that can help vulnerable people.”<\/blockquote>Chan Young Koh<\/cite><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n