This is a working page
I was originally a running coach, then a sport scientist.
Then someone I loved got really sick, and I went into neuroscience to advocate for them properly. Everything after — the lab, the company, all of it — grew from that one decision.
Since then I've worked at the intersection of thinking and moving at the same time, at the Motor Control Laboratory at York University. We've done amazing work on the frontier of systems neuroscience and technology — I've had the opportunity to apply AI modeling to brain-and-behavior data, use MRI to get a solid grasp of the impact of behavior, and ultimately help people with mild traumatic brain injury feel better.
You'll notice that, for someone with five years in a lab — as a scientist, a master's student, and then a scientist again — I've led teams of up to eight and helped coordinate multi-site and international research initiatives, including in war-torn countries.
I don't have much published work, bar a few conferences. There's a reason for that.
Intellectual property and academia compete in a very interesting way: if you publish or make your work public before you file a provisional patent, your patent loses rights in most of Europe and Asia. Crazy, right?
So yes — I've got two patents pending. Patents for what, you might ask? For the secretive-ish stuff I've been doing for the past five years: an augmented-reality (optical see-through) game I still can't easily describe.
You really have to play it to believe it. In an early pilot — and I'll be straight, it was small, so take it as signal, not proof — we saw gains of roughly 68% in energy and 77% in fornix integrity (the white-matter highway that connects who you are to your memories). Small n, real direction. I'd rather hand you the honest version than a number dressed up to look bigger than it is.
I've since become the Founder and CEO of Path Forward Neurotech, named after what I hope the company will become: a way forward for people who may have lost hope. When you're lost and looking for a path forward, we're here to help.
I've done a bunch and learned a lot of business this past year. It's been a doozy — which meant that sometimes I didn't do all my homework and eat my broccoli, but it let me really understand the state of medical reimbursement, speak to hundreds of clinicians, patients, and stakeholders, and make my first series of sales, with those people referring more people to try the product I made in an effort to help the world. Really exciting, and frankly challenging, stuff.
You can see the consumer product — a brain-state experience where you walk into a brain studio, put on a headset, and are guided by a neuroscience-trained brain coach — at otrada.studio.
One thing I wasn't prepared for was just how different the business landscape is. If you're developing something like a software-based therapeutic, I can tell you the problem isn't your product, even though it might seem like it.
The reality of the market is that our medical system — and by ours I mean everywhere: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, even Madagascar — isn't built for what's coming: software-based digital therapeutics.
When I was building my product, two things were stopping us from properly commercializing, and it wasn't access to capital, even though that's the easy excuse. I'm Canadian, and we have a pervasive narrative that funding is very challenging — and while that's true, the real problem is that the incentive structures of this space, especially for health technologies, simply aren't aligned with the outcomes we want to deliver to our citizens.
I could talk about this for hours, but the thing you need to know is that this world is still very new. DARPA built the internet only, what, fifty-odd years ago? In a similar vein, medicine as we know it is still a toddler-level institution learning to crawl — especially in our current age.
What that means is that health regulation is way behind anything that would allow for the proper capitalization of health technology for the wellbeing of the state.
You could build the best digital service in the world — one that helps someone with anorexia eat again, and feel good — but because the right regulations and systems aren't in place, either the person who isn't well or the medical institution has to pay. Neither of those works. This is stupid.
It's the real reason so many health-technology companies have failed: they weren't able to align value creation with incentives.
What would fixing this unlock? For starters: AI companions, better support, lower rates of depression and suicide, adjuvant therapies that could be dose-outcome variations of exercise, and so much more. Imagine if we could empower clinicians, nurses, and all medical staff — alongside patients — without good ideas falling into the gutter.
Ever since I had this epiphany, I've been asking myself: what would a more aligned incentive structure look like? Who should build it? How should it work? So rather than make this a "stealth" startup, I've decided to make my little manifesto public. If you, or anyone you know, has been annoyed with the state of the world and wants to build the next digital pharmacy — give me a shout: hi@machu.la, or book office hours. :)
This is aimed squarely at anyone with a policy, regulatory, health, infrastructure, or personal frustration who wants to make the world better. So cheesy. Good thing I'm not lactose intolerant.