This week, Control Bionics CEO Rob Wong sat down with Bulls N’ Bears host Matt Birney to discuss the company’s innovative technology and market growth. Click here to listen to the full interview.
Matt Birney: As I see it, Control Bionics essentially gives voice to the voiceless – people that are paralyzed or afflicted by some disease that restricts their mobility and ability to communicate. What are your principal products and how exactly do you give the disabled back the power to communicate?
Rob Wong: We have world-class technology based around EMG (which is muscle signals from the brain) which allow our device (which sits on the body) to be able to communicate with the computer and we turn those signals into words. We think the combination of products which uses that technology and eyegaze technology together, provides world-beating technology – there’s nothing better in the world anywhere.
Matt Birney: Which consumer groups are you looking to tap into, and how big is the market?
Rob Wong: Our product really suits the people who really have trouble speaking and moving, so this is people with conditions like MND, who your investors would be aware of, conditions like cerebral palsy. The global market for communications is multi-billion dollars worth of market, we’re just scratching the surface, we’re really just rolling our patented technology out across markets at the minute in both Australia, the US, and very soon Japan.
Matt Birney: Is there anything else out there that does the same thing?
Rob Wong: Nothing that does to the level of effectiveness that we do. Particularly, what the key part of our technology is it’s faster and it’s more accurate and it’s less fatiguing for people to be able to operate.
Matt Birney: I see you have about 3.9 million in sales last year, which is pretty good. What countries are you operating in and what major reseller agreements have you signed for the year?
Rob Wong: We’re operating in Australia, the USA (which is the largest funded communication market in the world) and we are focusing on both a direct to sale model in both Australia and the US. We’ve signed a major reseller agreement with the NuMotion group in the US in the last 6 months. We think there’s great opportunity for them to sell our communication device as part of their mix.
