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Catalin Voss

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Catalin Voss
Born1995 (age 28–29)
Heidelberg, Germany
EducationStanford University
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur; co-founder & CTO of Ello Technology, Inc.
Known forInventor, Founder
Websitewall-lab.stanford.edu/people/catalin/

Catalin Voss is a German-born inventor and entrepreneur. Voss is considered a pioneer in applying artificial intelligence and machine learning for societal impact in areas such as childhood literacy, Autism, financial inclusion in emerging economies, and the criminal justice system.[1][2][3][4]

He is currently the co-founder and CTO of Ello, an AI-powered reading tutor for children.[5]

Early life and education[edit]

Catalin Voss was born in Heidelberg, Germany.[6] At the age of 12, when the Apple iPhone was released for the first time, Voss taught himself iOS development[7] and launched a podcast and online tutorials about iPhone app development which attracted over 200,000 viewers.[8]

At age 15, Voss caught the attention of Steve Capps, one of the creators of the original Apple Macintosh, who offered him an internship working on mobile app development at PayNearMe.[9] With Capps, he helped to design, develop, and co-launch the mobile payment platform, and was kept on by CEO Danny Shader as a software engineer.[9][7][6]

Voss graduated with honors from Stanford University in 2016 with a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science and a specialization in Artificial Intelligence.[10] Voss enrolled in Stanford’s PhD program in Artificial Intelligence, but has been on leave since 2020 to co-found Ello.

Sension[edit]

While still an undergraduate student at Stanford, Voss founded Sension, a computer vision startup.[11] Sension developed advanced facial motion capture technology that could be used for a variety of applications from driver monitoring systems to educational analytics, but the original purpose of the technology was to track student engagement during online courses.[8] Voss served as CEO of Sension and led the development of the company's core technology.[11]

In 2015, Sension was acquired by GAIA Systems Solutions, a Toyota-affiliated company, for an undisclosed amount.[12]

Autism Glass[edit]

While working on the facial recognition technology for Sension, Voss realized that emerging technology–which could identify emotions–would be helpful for his Autistic cousin.[13] Voss shared with the NY Times how his cousin used to practice making facial expressions in the mirror to learn to recognize emotions[14] With Terry Winograd and Dennis Wall, Voss founded the Autism Glass Project to develop a wearable AI system that could provide real-time social cues to children with ASD.[15] The system used machine learning algorithms to analyze facial expressions and provide visual and auditory feedback to the wearer through a heads-up display.[16] Children would wear Google Glasses which would provide information to the wearer about the emotions expressed by people around them.[17]

In 2016, Voss and his team published a paper at the IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV) describing their approach, which won the best paper award.[18]

Over the next several years, the Autism Glass system was evaluated in a series of clinical trials at Stanford Medical School which found that children who used the device showed significant improvements in their social skills and ability to recognize emotions.[19]

In 2018, the intellectual property for the Autism Glass system was licensed to Cognoa, a pediatric behavioral health company.[20]

DukaConnect[edit]

In 2017, Voss co-founded DukaConnect, a Nairobi-based startup that developed a low-cost, computer vision-based point of sale system for small retailers in Kenya which used a smartphone camera to automatically recognize products and record sales, eliminating the need for barcode scanners.[21] DukaConnect’s mission was to harness the power of technology to help small business owners in Kenya focus on what matters to grow their businesses sustainably.[22] In 2018, Mastercard acquired DukaConnect for an undisclosed amount and integrated the technology into its Lab for Financial Inclusion in Nairobi.[23]

Project Recon[edit]

As a PhD student at Stanford, Voss co-led a project called "Project Recon" that used natural language processing to analyze racial disparities in parole hearing transcripts in California.[24] Voss and his team collected and analyzed over 35,000 parole hearing transcripts from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).[25]

When the CDCR refused to release certain data on inmate race and attorney representation, citing privacy concerns, Voss and his team sued the CDRC to gain access to the data.[26] In 2021, a California Superior Court judge ruled in Voss's favor, ordering the CDCR to release the requested data.[27]

Patents[edit]

  • US10835167B2, Voss, Catalin; HABER, Nicholas Joseph & Wall, Dennis Paul et al., "Systems and methods for using mobile and wearable video capture and feedback plat-forms for therapy of mental disorders", issued 2020-11-17 
  • US20240071185A1, Voss, Catalin, "Mobile device platform for automated visual retail product recognition", issued 2024-02-29 
  • US9626701B2, Capps, Stephen P.; Minor, John Paul & Voss, Catalin, "System and method for facilitating cash payment transactions using a mobile device", issued 2017-04-18 
  • US9892315B2, Voss, Catalin & HABER, Nicholas Joseph, "Systems and methods for detection of behavior correlated with outside distractions in examinations", issued 2018-02-13 
  • WO2022140166A1, VOSS, Catalin; SAYER, Thomas Robert & Nag, Anish, "Systems and methods for speech validation", issued 2022-06-30 


References[edit]

  1. ^ Schwartz, Saira Hussain, Cara Gagliano, and Adam (2020-08-11). "Victory! Court Orders CA Prisons to Release Race of Parole Candidates". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2024-06-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Metz, Cade (2019-07-17). "Google Glass May Have an Afterlife as a Device to Teach Autistic Children". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  3. ^ "Checking your browser". www.f6s.com. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  4. ^ Forristal, Lauren (2023-09-07). "AI reading coach startup Ello raises $15M to bolster child literacy". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  5. ^ "About Us". www.ello.com. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  6. ^ a b "Catalin Voss | Lemelson". lemelson.mit.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  7. ^ a b Palmer, Ross (2021-10-08). "Catalin Voss: Founder of Ello and Silicon Valley Social Entrepreneur". Ross Palmer. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  8. ^ a b Tanner, Adam (2017-06-14). "19-Year-Old Teaching Your Laptop to Pick Up Your Feelings". Pacific Standard. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  9. ^ a b "Epicenter: Story - Changing the Way We Use Technology". epicenter.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  10. ^ Stanford 125 (2016-07-28). "Scaling autism's walls: Catalin Voss". Stanford 125. Retrieved 2024-06-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ a b "Voss '16 respected in Silicon Valley, founded Sension startup". 2013-10-01. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  12. ^ "(GAIA Systems Solutions Inc. Archived 2015-11-23 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 November 2015.)".
  13. ^ "Google Glass lives on as a device to teach autistic children | Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute". neuroscience.stanford.edu. 2023-10-23. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  14. ^ Metz, Cade (2019-07-17). "Google Glass May Have an Afterlife as a Device to Teach Autistic Children". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  15. ^ University, Stanford. "Autism Glass Project". autismglass.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  16. ^ Metz, Cade. "Clinical Trial Will Test if Google Glass Can Help Kids with Autism". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  17. ^ Press, Associated (2016-06-23). "Google Glass could change the way autistic kids read faces". Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  18. ^ "The Wall Lab | Congratulations to Autism Google Glass team for Best Poster award". wall-lab.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  19. ^ [email protected], <img src='https://med stanford edu/news/media-contacts/erin_digitale/_jcr_content/image img 620 high jpg/digitale-erin-90 jpg' alt='Erin Digitale'> Erin Digitale Erin Digitale is a senior science writer in the Office of Communications Email her at (2017-05-08). "Google Glass helps kids with autism read facial expressions". News Center. Retrieved 2024-06-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  20. ^ "Stanford Medicine licenses Google Glass-based autism tech to Cognoa". MobiHealthNews. 2019-04-10. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  21. ^ "Checking your browser". www.f6s.com. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  22. ^ "x.com". X (formerly Twitter). Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  23. ^ "Mastercard: Diligent About Digital In Africa". www.forbesafrica.com. 2019-09-02. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  24. ^ "Is Natural Language Processing Ready to Take on Legal Hearings?". hai.stanford.edu. 2021-05-03. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  25. ^ "THE RECON APPROACH: A NEW DIRECTION FOR MACHINE LEARNING IN CRIMINAL LAW" (PDF).
  26. ^ "Petition - Voss v. CDCR". Electronic Frontier Foundation. 2020-08-10. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  27. ^ Schwartz, Saira Hussain, Cara Gagliano, and Adam (2020-08-11). "Victory! Court Orders CA Prisons to Release Race of Parole Candidates". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2024-06-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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