Pushing the boundaries of human ingenuity… one invention at a time

Tania Dias
Humanity in Tech
Published in
11 min readMay 4, 2021

Interview with Biman Liyanage, serial entrepreneur, and inventor of the world’s first smart condom, WEF-recognized sustainably designed smart PPE mask and others.

Watch the WEF video here

You find a huge problem, have a radical solution and then use breakthrough technology to solve it. You don’t focus on 10% incremental advancements but on 10x impact.

- Moon Shot Thinking Framework

As the world currently faces an unprecedented health and economic crisis, Humanity in Tech explores the many faces of human leadership during the age of technology and the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the first part of a two-part series, we interviewed Biman Liyanage, a prolific inventor and serial entrepreneur with multiple patents in his name who keeps pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Having founded several advanced technology development ventures established in Beijing, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Sri Lanka, he shifted his team’s focus during Covid to create a low-cost, biodegradable smart PPE mask recently recognized by the World Economic Forum.

We sat down with Biman to understand what inspires him to keep inventing and creating for the human good.

In an incredible 2 hour conversation, Biman shares how he came to discover magic and embark on his mission to create tools that alleviate human suffering. He discusses why he believes all of us can use our imagination to solve big problems and he cautions society to tackle problems with a Zebra rather than Unicorn mentality. Biman is a humane technologist and leader who is guided by a deceptively simple but profound mantra: “do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

About Biman:

Biman specializes in affective computing and smart material-based advanced wearables. He has far-reaching experiences ranging from collaborating with Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Porsche, Daimler and Tencent, to successfully deliver over 800 advanced technology projects, to developing the world’s first sustainably designed face mask to use respiration sensor technology and graphene to detect respiration bio markers from a human’s breath.

Biman has won numerous awards including TechCrunch’s Start Up Competition, the Red Dot Design Award, IF Design Award Finalist 2021, the FengRu Cup, the Global Innovation Challenge and the Durex Design Challenge and serves as a Board Member for the NGO ‘Business for Better Society’, is an ambassador for ‘She Loves Tech’, and is the Co-Founder of the UrbanX Tech Accelerator for UN Habitat funded by the World Bank Group in Nairobi, Kenya. He is a Forbes 30 under 30 in Healthcare and Life Sciences in Asia and is a Global Shaper for the World Economic Forum.

Edited by Tania Dias and Alex Artiach. [Editor’s note: this interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]

Our knowledge and perception of the world is limited by the instruments that humans have created.

Tania Dias and Alex Artiach: You are an entrepreneur and inventor. What inspired you to follow this path?

Biman Liyanage: As humans we have two possibilities. We either believe as a species that we are alone in the universe or not which is terrifying. For me, I chose the second option. I loved my telescope — it was a tool that let me see far away. And that’s where my curiosity came from. At age five or six I had two questions — Why am I on this planet? What is my purpose?

I think it is because humans are gifted with five senses that we try to see further. But because we’re not equipped for it, we start building tools. The telescope being one them. But there was a point where I realized we were limited by our engineering to get all our answers. If we got a bigger telescope, we could see further. But if tomorrow we built a better telescope, we’d see even more.

This is why I fell in love with science and that was the first lesson I learned; we are only the epicenter of the observable. Our knowledge and perception of the world are limited by the instruments that humans have created.

So I started building new tools to have a clearer vision. I transitioned from being a scientist to an engineer.

TD: Would you say your goal is to build better tools?

BL: Not completely. I realized that the problems that I’m interested in are problems like magic. For example, identifying depression from voice using AI. Their answers weren’t right in front of me. They were covered or buried in a few different layers. You spend half a decade uncovering the secrets one code-line at a time to merge the expertise of human intelligence and reinforce AI to make better decisions.

So I want to be someone who cares enough to go out of their comfort zone and see where the magic is happening.

But this can also be dangerous when you are highly curious. You can get stuck in problems that have no solutions or take a whole lifetime to solve. Honestly, it can be a waste of time because the impact you have on the people of tomorrow is less and less.

So what you want to do is solve a big problem, but every time you uncover a little bit of the puzzle piece, you have a positive impact.

TD: We have to ask you — you come from Sri Lanka. How did you end up in Beijing, China?

BL: When I was small, my high school Nalanda College had the third largest telescope in the world which was gifted to use by a scientist at NASA JPL Labratory. Even though we were high school students we used it to do graduate-level research. So I grew up wanting to be a rocket scientist. But Sri Lanka didn’t send rockets to the moon so I decided to find a place that did.

To me, I thought that everything was “Made in China.” At the time, I was a very small Bibu (nickname for Biman). My mental picture about China was that it was a country that made everything.

When I got to China, I had to start everything from scratch. I come from a somewhat privileged family in Sri Lanka, but when you go to China, and you start to become an engineer, you understand that even though everything is cheap and accessible, it’s still expensive for you. I had to learn a new language, do engineering in a new language, build everything from the beginning. This was my introduction to building in a low-resource environment.

TD & AA: What does it mean to you to build and invent?

BL: My curiosity is designed in such a way that I put two things together, even though they don’t match.

For example, people say- put apples and oranges together. I’m the person who then tries every other single fruit as well even though apples and oranges might be the best method. When you do this for a long time, you start to see patterns. You get really good at putting two things together and making it work. It becomes like cooking from a recipe.

Then you understand how to apply technology to either learn about a problem or solve it. That’s the idea behind moonshot thinking. You find a huge problem, have a radical solution and then use breakthrough technology to solve it.

I’m curious to explore open waters that no one has tested yet. I hope to journal and document my process, share my adventure stories with people who will listen to me. I believe that if people don’t leave breadcrumbs for others to follow, don’t explore areas like Columbus, we will still be sailing the same seas.

TD & AA: Where do you get your inspiration from?

BL: I live by two mantras. Either accept something or change it. And do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

You have your functional brain that tells you like, “lift your right hand, lift your left hand.” Then there’s this ultra realistic rendering that you can create in a split second when you close your eyes that can’t be fully explained. You can call it imagination.

I believe this is a portal where you can find answers in an infinite space of knowledge. I may spend eight hours a day reading, researching, experimenting and writing but still, just before going to sleep, I close my eyes and think of a solution.

I feel like virtual Biman playing a game in the playground. I use the realistic 4D display that we have (our brain) to find answers by using my non-realistic metaphysical mind. I see so many answers, so many possibilities.

TD & AA: How do you choose what to work on?

BL: I work on solving big problems. I don’t mean big in terms of market size or money. I’ll give you an example:

Let’s say there is a slum. Let’s say in this area there are 200 houses that don’t have access to clean water. When you first look at it, it’s just 200 houses. But when you look at it from a slumdweller’s point of view, its a huge problem.

So its really about how much change you can make on people’s lives. If you can improve their life by 10x then its a big change.

But its hard to change systems because they are extremely complex. They’re made out of so many nodes, attachments, interconnections that we don’t understand. So you need to understand the stakeholders and change their mental models.

For example, the next wearable should just be a toothbrush which is so intelligent that when you brush your teeth it analyzes your cells, DNA and metabolism. The technology is so seamlessly integrated to a normal behavior that you don’t have to do anything to collect a layer of data.

TD & AA: Where does your desire to improve people’s lives come from?

BL: I’ve seen how forceful evil looks like. Sri Lanka has been through 33 years of civil war and suicide bombings. My whole childhood was a civil war. I was saved three times from suicide bombs. I’ve seen people do really bad things and I’ve seen how engineering can be used to torture, destroy and do evil.

We’re living in two worlds.

One is we ask a guy on a $8000 dollar salary to fire a missile, which costs $80,000 to make, to destroy a community where people make $8 a month.

And then in parallel, you see a guy who lost his leg because of a mine. He is going to use a fake leg for the rest of life to make sure he can support his family. His fake leg is just a piece of wooden stick because he can’t afford a 3D printed leg. This difference doesn’t make logical sense.

Right now, you have the smartest engineers in the world at Facebook, ByteDance and many others trying to optimize your attention time to sell more ads. These companies are making you the product. And investors just keep pumping money into this.

Fundamentally, I do not see these problems as needing to be solved immediately in this decade. But Malaria is, homelessness is, access to clean water is, climate changes is.

TD & AA: What are you currently working on right now? (November 2020)

Courtesy of Academy of Entrepreneurs

BL: We’re in the midst of Covid-19 so I’ve reorientated all our operations to help with this big problem. We’re working on respiratory protective equipment for frontline workers that doesn’t contribute to the pollution problem.

Huge problems need all people working together. If you want to be a unicorn and solve a big problem you will not get very far. At a unicorn, few individuals make decisions on behalf of the monopoly and unsustainable growth is promoted.

But in reality, you want a world of “zebras” working on huge problems. Zebras are steady and stable. They seek partnerships and they want to collaborate

TD & AA: How can we all have more courage to solve these problems that matter?

BL: As a conscious human being, I try to spend as much as I can be working from joy. And I know I will be okay. For me, okay is enough. I know I am a small peanut in the universe. I know that when I came into this earth, I came naked and when I leave I will also be naked.

When you have this simple realization then you become bold and beautiful. Not bold and beautiful in terms of titles but in terms of yourself and the impact you feel you can make in this world.

TD & AA: This is the end of the first part of our interview with Biman. In part two, we will dive into the responsibility that comes from innovating. Biman discusses how engineers and entrepreneurs need to become more conscious about the human impact of their creations or else humanity is in trouble. Stay tuned and thank you for reading!

Get Involved

If you want to learn more about Humanity in Tech, follow us and get in touch! We are on a mission to equip people with the tools to navigate the intersection between humanistic values and technology. Humanity in Tech is uncovering the leadership capabilities needed to safeguard human value and prioritize human well-being in this technological age. Join our movement!

If you’d like to nominate a thought-leader to be interviewed for our series, please email Tania at tdesdias@gmail.com.

  • Who we are looking for? Thought-leaders on the cutting-edge of environmental sustainability, employment, biotech, education, transportation, finance, mental health, culture and the arts.
  • Why do it? We want to highlight the impact work you and your organization are doing. Our audience will be emerging leaders who are looking to learn about the future and understand their role in shaping it. You will be able to share your insight and advice with them while spreading awareness about your cause and work.

--

--

Tania Dias
Humanity in Tech

Humans in technology and not the other way round.