Michael Callahan: Communication is Key

Imagine for a minute that you can’t walk, you have no control of your muscles, and you can’t talk. How would you get around and how would you communicate with others? While these questions have gone unanswered for many years, in 2007, Illinois graduate Michael Callahan created a company named Ambient whose goal is to enable all of the world’s communication.

Callahan and Thomas Coleman, co-founders of Ambient, took their venture to both the Cozad (2006) and Lemelson (2007) competitions held by the Technology Entrepreneur Center (TEC). They won both competitions and received cash prizes that propelled them even further into their venture. 

After Callahan and Coleman created Ambient their first project was the Audeo. The Audeo consists of a sensor that rests on the surface of the skin at the vocal cords. The sensor picks up instructions sent from your brain and then translates them into speech. The team then used this technology to control a motorized wheelchair. To see more about this visit www.theaudeo.com.

Callahan hopes the device will help people with ALS and cerebral palsy as well as others who have lost the ability to speak and voluntarily move muscles. In the future, he sees the technology being sold in the consumer space for everyone to use.

In conjunction with the Audeo, Callahan has also been working on new technologies to help advance communication. He has created a cell phone application where a person is able to speak silently into one end of the phone and still be heard by the other end. They demonstrated this technology in 2008 with “the world’s first voiceless phone call.”

Outside of the Audeo, Callahan has been working for about a year and a half on another technology that will notify someone when people around them share their interests. There is both a mobile phone application and a website version that he hopes to launch shortly. Callahan believes that in the future, people will look back at society and wonder how there was a time when we didn’t know how people around us could benefit us or if we shared common interests with them. 

Obviously this company has flourished since the Cozad and Lemelson competitions. They now employ about fifteen people (some seasonally), and have been working on new devices and technologies that they hope to see on the market soon.

Callahan says that while he doesn’t spend much off time from his company, when he does get the chance, he skateboards, records electronic music and plays with his rabbit Peek-a-boo. He also makes time to travel to places like California, New York and Texas.

Callahan attributes some of his success to the guidance and support of the TEC staff. They really helped encourage him to pursue his ideas. He also says that for anyone who grew up in the Midwest like he did, the University of Illinois is everything they could want it to be to help develop them into a world class entrepreneur.