Faculty Earn Medallions for Patent, Company at Patent Luncheon
Leaders and faculty from the College of Engineering and Tech Launch Arizona celebrate at the 2024 patent medallion luncheon.
Tech Launch Arizona and the College of Engineering celebrate their groundbreaking engineers every year at the Patent Luncheon. College faculty were responsible for more than 20% of the University of Arizona's patents over the past year. However, some faculty members went beyond patents and created companies as well.
One such new company is SeVA, or Senior’s Virtual Assistant, ECE professor Salim Hariri, together with two professors from the College of Medicine – Phoenix, to commercialize artificial intelligence technology they patented this past year.
Among SeVA’s benefits is the ability to detect conditions such as dementia and depression more accurately and at earlier stages than the current standard method, said Hariri. A nurse asks the patient questions and scores their answers.
“The problem is, that’s subjective, so 50% of elderly people with dementia leave hospitals with the condition undetected,” he said.
SeVA uses wearable sensors that record biological data, as well as voice and word analysis, to make more accurate diagnoses, leading to more effective treatment. The system can also prevent falls – when a patient starts to rise, it asks what is needed, then sends a caregiver to help – and provide other important alerts.
Hariri is developing the product and company with associate clinical professor Nimit Agarwal and assistant research professor Sumit Agarwal. Tech Launch Arizona granted them the funds to build a prototype, and the inventors are in discussions with several hospitals in Los Angeles to test the SeVA system.
“There’s a huge demand for nurses, and this can help reduce their load and also help families take care of loved ones,” said Hariri.
ECE Patents for the Year
The following ECE faculty members received patent medallions for the year.
Salim Hariri – SeVA: Senior’s Virtual Assistant
Ivan Djordjevic – Probabilistically Coded Fronthaul Networks
Wolfgang Fink – Automated Network-On-Chip Design
Marwan Krunz - Dielectric antenna array and system