Doors Open at Algonquin

Posted on Friday, September 13th, 2013

Hand opening a door

In my last post I mentioned that that while the hallways may be quiet in the summer, behind closed doors the Health and Wellness Research Centre remains active. So let us open the doors for a peak behind the scenes. Just recently I spent an amazing morning with Aliasgar Morbi, Richard Beranek & Kyle Klumper from GaitTronics. GaitTronics is a local medical device start-up out of Carleton University focused on technology for early mobilization of patients. We opened the doors to the College’s Health Simulation Lab to them for a video shoot. So while videographer (Helena Escallon) who coincidentally just happened to be an Algonquin alum, and Nurse for the day (Angela Schuegraf) were busy at work, I spent some time to learn more about their company and compelling technology.

Their flagship product GaitEnable is intended to enhance early mobilization of patients and has a focus on both patient and caregiver safety. Importantly the technology also offers some quantifiable cost saving benefits.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this technology up close, getting to learn more about GaitTronics and most importantly meeting these committed individuals. What struck me was their level of sophistication, something that can sometimes be lacking in young entrepreneurs and particularly in the medical devices space. While these guys are passionate about what they are doing, they also keenly understand the difficulties they face in the medical device marketplace and have a clearly defined value proposition for adoption of their technology. This potent mixture suggests this is an Ottawa medical devices start-up to watch closely in the coming years.

You know opening doors is sort of what College is all about, and it almost always pays off. I for one am glad that we opened our doors to GaitTronics one morning this summer. Because in addition to getting to see this amazing technology up close and meeting some really nice people, this Fall we now hope to get our students and faculty engaged with GaitTronics on an applied research project focused on device usability.

If you need a door opened, just ask, you never know where it may lead.

-Kevin Holmes
Project Manager, Health and Wellness Research Centre

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