Zeeshan Khan ’17
Founder and CEO, Zoetic Motion
Co-Founder, Color Coded, nonprofit promoting career and academic success of historically underrepresented minorities in tech
BS, Computer Science, Minor in Entrepreneurship; MS in Computer Science, focusing on Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision technology, both degrees from California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo
Zoetic Motion uses AI to assist people who need it like with physical therapy exercises, which require patient consistency. Our intelligent coaching system mimics a physical therapist with a gamified portal of exercises to connect in-clinic progress with out-of-clinic accountability. We track a patient’s body pose with their phone or computer camera for feedback. Patients get the support and accountability they need for recovery, and therapists get real-time engagement data.
I designed an AI algorithm that assesses the correctness and identifies potential risks for patients performing common physical therapy exercises. It’s based on open-sourced technology that allows us to read from everyday devices, like a phone or tablet, without any additional sensors. Now, we’re building on that, with a fine-tuned, proprietary measurement layer that infers a digital 3D representation of the body for in-depth analysis.
AI has a lot more work to be done for it to be fully applicable in our lives; it functions best as an assistive tool, where it has fewer errors, but it has the clear potential to eventually handle tasks more comprehensively. It works in a mathematical pattern-based way, which takes away a level of human emotion. During my master’s work, I asked AI to consider two hospital patients in need of the last dose of amoxicillin penicillin. AI determined that the older patient had less value to give to the world vs. the younger patient. It won’t consider emotions or the possibility of finding another dose from another hospital.
AI’s biggest advantage is in health care or any field that requires extreme documentation and consistency. When you can give someone a tool that replicates a therapy session, you provide an opportunity to continue their learning, support and treatment. An AI coach could guide a stroke victim in practicing basic skills, provide 24/7 support and give feedback to staff. With the nursing shortage, there are not enough people to monitor if patients are doing their exercises. I’m talking with [Bay Area] hospitals about an iPad on wheels that goes from patient to patient to walk them through exercises during inpatient care.
Before college and through my sophomore year, I was a student innovator for the Google Cloud platform. We promoted the Google Cloud platform on university campuses. This was my first introduction to how technology has specific applications. In college I studied cybersecurity, but by senior year, AI was popping up. I got excited by the idea of mimicking the brain with the computer. With cybersecurity, it’s great helping people keep their money and data private, but at the end of the day, I want to help people smile [because] AI helped them get through something important.
At the onset of COVID-19, there was a strong push to find representative datasets, particularly for distributing new vaccines and in medical research considerations. Alongside professors and peers at Cal Poly, we began introducing research from “Data for Black Lives,” focusing on unequal representation in public datasets. This effort promoted new research projects that aimed to ensure diversity and representation across campus.