MediTech has vision to expand SenzE communication device overseas

Managing director Piyasak Boonkomrat said SenzE allowed patients to communicate accurately and conveniently with physicians and family. 

According to the World Stroke Organisation, there were 751,350 stroke patients in Thailand whose affliction robbed them of the ability to communicate normally. 

“The inspiration to develop SenzE came from my own passion to develop a system to help stroke patients who cannot move and communicate with the others any more, either by speaking or writing, to be able to communicate with their eyes,” Piyasak said.

Three years ago, a friend of Piyasak consulted him on where to find technology to help his father, who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), to regain his ability to communicate. At that time, Piyasak was running a company named Bangkok Web Solution, and he helped his friend search for the information he needed. But he found that there was no such the solution developed by a Thai company. 

“There were only solutions abroad that were not available in Thailand. At that time, I got the idea of developing such solutions to help these kinds of patients, stroke and ALS sufferers, to be able to communicate,” he said.

He decided to set up MediTech Solution with dedicated programmers devoted to developing the SenzE solution. His teams spent two years in research and development. After being field-tested with 10 patients at Prasat Neurological Institute, SenzE version 1.0 came out. 

SenzE uses eye-tracking technology from the OpenCV (open-source computer vision) library and image processing. The system consists of a high-definition camera, laptop computer, TV monitor, and table designed specifically for the purpose. 

The HD camera detects the patient’s eye movements. Winking twice is equivalent to the “enter” command on a computer keyboard. 

The SenzE program is designed to be easy to use. It comes with menus that direct patients to the most necessary commands, including food and other requirements. The program automatically moves a coloured bar through the menu buttons. Once the colour hits the menu item that the user wants, he or she just winks twice.

“This action is the equivalent of pressing the ‘enter’ button. The colour moving across the menus acts as the cursor,” Piyasak said. 

The system also comes with an entertainment program to allow patients to listen to music or watch movies. 

The menu is in Thai and English.

Piyasak said SenzE version 2.0 was now available, and this version of the program could speak out loud instead of relying on text and still photos only. 

The system can be connected to a mobile platform, which can be further developed for eye-controlling medical equipment, games and other gadgets in the future. He said SenzE version 3.0 was being developed and would be available by March. It will come up with an Internet connection and will be produced under the company’s own brand. 

“We plan to develop a message application to allow patients to chat with their friends and family via an application like LINE. There will be an emergency button that links to the mobile phone of the patient’s family.” 

SenzE is available at the starting price of Bt180,000 with two-year on-site service. This price is 40 per cent lower than similar systems from abroad. He said SenzE was the first eye-tracking system for stroke and ALS patients in Thailand, which was only the third country in world to develop a solution of this kind, along with the United States and Sweden.

SenzE has won a number of awards: “Thai IT Tycoon 2012”; runner-up for “True Innovation Award 2012”; “Science for Excellence Project 2013” from the Senate; and topping “Thailand ICT Awards 2013” in the E-Health and Well-being Applications category. It has received funding from the National Innovation Agency and lately also received investment from InTouch’s InVent unit.

Piyasak said the partnership with InVent would support long-term growth for MediTech Solution. InTouch’s strong domestic and international network of subsidiaries and business partners can support MediTech’s expansion into Asean. The funding will be used for SenzE and research and development of other products such as games and medical equipment.

From the total 750,000 patients who could benefit from this kind of technology, Piyasak said around 3 per cent, or about 22,500 patients, were a potential market worth Bt4.05 billion within the next five to six years. The company aims to export SenzE to the Asean region in the future as well. He expects that the total market for this kind of solution in Asean would be around Bt20.25 billion.

“Next we will adapt SenzE’s eye-tracking system to cloud computing to offer it through the ‘software as a service’ model, which will help the company rapidly expand to the global market. We will also to expand the eye-tracking system for other purposes for other target groups such as games and entertainment.”