What a year! Year-end update for 2016 🎅 Thanks for your support 🎆
Newsletter; 23 December, 2016
Hello!
It is close to the end of the year, and what a year it has been!
For us it’s been a year of planning and preparing for the epicness that will be 2017: the year we launch our first commercial product, nous™. It’s been a rewarding but difficult few years doing the important research and development that is crucial to the success of building an assistive solution like nous™. But we’ve already shifted our mindsets and are so very excited for the next chapter of Thought-Wired.
PledgeMe crowdfunding was a success!
Our success this far would not have been possible without all of your support. We’re still in awe of the amount we were able to raise through PledgeMe, and absolutely smashed our original target of $200k. Again, we would like thank our 163 new shareholders for believing and investing in us and our vision! Also a massive thank you to everyone who has helped us in practical ways, tested our prototypes, offered an ear and advice — it really goes to show the power of community.
You all rock! 👏😎
We’re growing
The next phase will see us grow as a company, and we’re currently actively seeking a Senior Software Engineer to come on board full time. This role will essentially head the software development of nous™, and put in place the processes, practices and standards required to sustain rapid and innovative development. We have a multidisciplinary team of researchers, developers, and engineers, and work collaboratively to build and test our ideas.
If you have the skills and are tickled by this unique opportunity to positively impact the lives of people who live with disabilities, please apply.
Otherwise, share the link with your networks, who knows, you may help us land the perfect person!
Help us co-design
As you know, we’re big on user-centered design. Everything we build is done in consultation with our end users. We would like to conduct more extensive user testing with this next round of development. If you are someone with a severe physical disability, or know of someone, or work in the disability sector, please get in touch. Your experiences will be critical to the design of a useful end solution, and we open our arms out to the good and bad feedback.
Demoing at the MIND BLOWING Singularity University Summit
Back in November we were honoured to be a part of the inaugural Singularity University Summit in Australasia, held in Christchurch. There were over 1,500 delegates who attended, with mind blowing and engaging talks related to how disruptive technologies have been, and will rapidly continue to, transform humanity and our planet.
Dmitry had the amazing opportunity to give an introduction to our tech on stage in the first day. You can check out the NZ-based talks on this youtube channel. During the session breaks we got to demo nous™ and how it’s related to the theme of exponential impact. The NZ Herald published a video interview with us, along with a number of other speakers, including the awesome astronaut Dan Barry, who we got to hang out with. Turns out one of his passions is to improve the lives of individuals with disabilities. Our kind of human!!
James wrote a pretty great summary of his experience at the summit on the blog, we recommend checking it out!
Once again, we would not be here if it weren’t for the people who surround us. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all you’ve done, and continue to do.
From the whole team, we wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and restful, recharging break! See you in 2017 👋😊
P.S We’ve been in the media quite a bit this year! See some of the links below:
- TVNZ Seven Sharp: Mind control has the potential to help severely disabled people the world over (video)
- Stuff.co.nz: Thought-Wired crowdfunding to launch brain-controlled technology
- Idealog: NZ Innovation Awards Finalists announcement. We were finalists in 2 categories!
- RadioLive: Dmitry having a quick chat with Duncan Garner (audio)
- bizEDGE: Kiwi innovation dominates Visa’s Everywhere Initiative. We took out the big prize in Sydney!
- RadioLive: Dmitry on a night show with Graeme Hill (audio)
- Dmitry interviewed by The Spinoff. On the Grid: Mindreading for the greater good with Thought-Wired
- NZ Herald: Future Shock: The amazing tech coming our way (video) Coverage of the SingularityU Summit, NZ including interview with Sarv
Originally published in our email newsletter.
