LONDON — Phoebe Hugh, the 28-year-old CEO and founder of insurance startup Brolly, has had an unusual career path, to say the least.

"I was running and dealing a Texas Hold 'Em poker game; I was an Indian head masseuse; I was a roller-skating waitress; and then I started a company around that," Hugh says, recalling jobs she did in her teens. "It was a strange time."

Hugh is featured on Business Insider's UK Fintech 35 under 35, a list of rising stars in the financial technology sector. Her startup Brolly is an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that helps people navigate the world of insurance. It has raised seed funding from Valar Ventures, the investment vehicle of renowned Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.

Business Insider jumped on the phone with Hugh to hear about how she got where she is todaym, and ask what advice she'd give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to follow in her footsteps. Here's what she said:

'Grit and sweat and tears'

Hugh's eclectic early employment was inspired by a desire to go travelling before university. That meant doing odd jobs in the evenings while working as a receptionist at a gym in the day.

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"I was looking at jobs on the internet and tried to do things that were slightly different," she recalls.

Waitressing on roller skates or dealing Texas Hold 'em poker may sound world's away from insurance, but Hugh believes those odd jobs gave her a valuable attribute: resilience.

"If you are really trying to do something, the more grit and sweat and tears that you put into it, hopefully, the more you get out," Hugh told Business Insider. "I would say try very versatile things. Put yourself in positions you feel uncomfortable in and I guess that gets you quite comfortable with any other situation where you feel out of your depth."

'Ask people who've done it'

Hugh credits a conversation with Alice Bentinck, the cofounder of accelerator programme Entrepreneur First, with giving her the confidence to set up Brolly.

Hugh was on Aviva's graduate trainee scheme for two years after graduation, but became frustrated with the slow pace of the organisation. She tracked down Bentinck for a coffee after hearing her speak and ended up going on the Entrepreneur First course, which helps aspiring entrepreneurs figure out how to set up a business.

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"Speak to as many people as possible and then try to figure things out," Hugh said. "There are some people who have given so much of their time to me, with no agenda — really, really helped me — and it's those people who really stick out in your mind."

Hugh feels "out of my depth all the time" when running Brolly, which she cofounded in 2016.

"When we first had to hire people I had absolutely no clue how to do that," She said. "The first time we had to hire, we started interviewing and I thought, god, I don't know which questions to ask, I need a structure for this, we're going to be doing so much of this.

"My usual strategy is to ask people who've done it. I spoke to our investors, I spoke to other founders, and asked them to help me, give me advice. What are the tools I can put in place?"

'Life is about finding problems to solve'

Hugh believes it's vital that founders find something they're passionate about rather than just a good business idea.

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"It's really important for people to figure out what they love doing, what they cannot not do," she says. "You have to experiment to figure out the things you become obsessive about and then if there's anything holding you back from making those changes, then those are the things that you need to tackle next."

Hugh admits that for most people insurance is boring, but she sees her startup as more about problem-solving that actuarial tables.

"I think most of life is about finding problems to solve," Hugh says. "Once you do that you can actually have an impact and add value.

"Most people just hate dealing with insurance — it's a really complicated part of people's lives. They put it off, and then they end up overspending massively and buying the wrong product. They find out at the pain point that they've either bought the wrong thing or they've claimed and they don't understand it.

"Insurance is such a big part of our economy and it's really important to people's lives to have the right things, but the whole industry is just completely stagnant."

The Cambridge Analytica scandal has given Facebook a black eye, but ultimately, it's likely to do little lasting damage.

That's the take of Daniel Ives, a financial analyst who covers the social networking giant for GBH Insights. Ives recently surveyed Facebook users from around the globe to get a sense of their sentiments about the company in the wake of the brouhaha over the leaking of millions of users' personal information to the Trump-linked data firm.

Despite copious amounts of press coverage of the data leak, most Facebook users were unaware of it, Ives found. Even among those who were aware of the scandal, only a minority said they planned to reduce their activity on the site as a result.

"There are clear concerns post-Cambridge," Ives said. "It's been a jolt to the system and raised eyebrows across board."

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But, he continued, "at this point it looks very containable in terms of damage to the platform and time spent" on it.

Indeed, working through the numbers in the survey, Ives estimated that about 15% of Facebook's worldwide users will spend less time on the site as a result of the scandal. Collectively, the number of minutes per week those concerned users spend on the site could fall 10% to 15%, he said. That would translate into about a 3% reduction in Facebook's global ad revenues, he said.

"I would characterize that as a better-than-feared number, given this is the darkest chapter in the company's 14-year history," Ives said.

Most Facebook users are unaware of the Cambridge Analytica scandal

Facebook has been scrambling for much of the last two months to contend with the news that Cambridge Analytica illegitimately gleaned the personal information of tens of millions of the social network's users via an app. Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg has faced tough questions in Congress and the European Parliament, Facebook has tightened up access to the personal data it holds, and it's launched new tools that are supposed to give users a better control over their information on the site.

Chris Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica employee who blew the whistle on its data leak Getty Images Still, despite the widespread coverage of the scandal, many people still aren't aware of it, Ives found. Only about 37% of Facebook users in Ives' survey said they were either extremely or very familiar with it. Some 46%, meanwhile, said they either weren't very familiar with it, or weren't familiar with it at all.

Those who were aware of the scandal are generally more concerned about their privacy on Facebook as a result. Some 63% of those aware of the scandal raised privacy concerns related to it, in Ives survey. Among those who weren't aware of the scandal, 44% had privacy worries.

But even among those who were aware of the scandal, less than half said they might take steps to reduce their interaction with Facebook as a result. About 46% of aware users said they were less likely to share information about themselves on the site. About 42% of such users said they would be less likely to share information about themselves with Facebook-connected third-party apps. And only about 32% said they would be less likely to use Facebook as a result of privacy concerns.

Among those who weren't previously aware of the scandal, the portion that said they would limit their use of the site or what they shared with it was even less.

Other reports have indicated the scandal hasn't affected Facebook's business

The survey results jibe with the company's first quarter earnings report. In spite of the furor over Cambridge Analytica, Facebook posted better-than-expected results and its number of daily active users increased in the period.

Meanwhile, a report from Baird last month similarly indicated that Facebook's ad business was holding up following the scandal.

That's not to say that Facebook is out of the woods, Ives said. The company has been hit with a string of bad publicity of late, including the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and its handling of hate speech and other issues. It also faces a significant challenge in contending with the Europe's new General Data Protection Regulation, a new wide-ranging privacy law that could hamper its advertising efforts there.

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"There is a bright spotlight on this company," Ives said. "That's why any other false moves could be more onerous."

But for now, the Cambridge Analytica scandal is looking like little more than a flesh wound.

"Ultimately today, the damage is limited and containable," he said.

The Trump administration has told Congress that the Commerce Department struck a deal with Chinese phone maker ZTE to ease sanctions against the tech giant in exchange for changes at the company.

According to a source familiar, the Commerce Department informed members of Congress that the current sanctions — a practice called a denial order which prevents ZTE from buying parts from US companies — will be lifted in exchange for changes at the company.

"Under the deal, ZTE will pay a bigger fine, have to hire American compliance officers, and they have to get rid of the current ZTE management team," the source told Business Insider. "Once they do all that, the denial order is lifted and they can start doing business with American companies again."

ZTE was crippled following sanctions from the US. The company said in a statement on May 10 that due to the crackdown, "the major operating activities of the company have ceased."

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The denial order was implemented after ZTE failed to respond to earlier sanctions that alleged the company sold goods containing US parts into Iran and North Korea, a violation of sanctions against those countries.

Members of Congress from both parties warned the Trump administration not to reverse sanctions on ZTE since the company both violated US law and posed a national security threat.

"Yes they have a deal in mind. It is a great deal... for #ZTE & China," GOP Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted Friday. "#China crushes U.S. companies with no mercy & they use these telecomm companies to spy & steal from us. Many hoped this time would be different. Now congress will need to act."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also expressed frustration in a statement.

"If the administration goes through with this reported deal, President Trump would be helping make China great again," Schumer said. "Simply a fine and changing board members would not protect America's economic or national security, and would be a huge victory for President Xi, and a dramatic retreat by President Trump. Both parties in Congress should come together to stop this deal in its tracks."

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A group of 27 senators from both parties signed on to a letter earlier in the week that, in part, warned the Trump adminstration against going easy on ZTE. The lawmakers pointed to national security officials' fear that ZTE could gain access to critical US technology and help bolster the Chinese government's efforts to modernize their defense capabilities.

China worked to get the sanctions against ZTE lifted in trade negations with the Trump adminstration over the past two weeks. In exchange for lifting the sanctions, China is reportedly willing to lower tariffs on US agricultural products like pork and wine.

When President Barack Obama was in office, he tried to be a good boss to the people working for him at the White House, he said onstage Wednesday at a tech conference in Las Vegas hosted by identity security company Okta.

Doing so was very important to him and first lady Michelle Obama, he said, giving as examples, "how we treated people, how we ran our household and staffs."

"That we had an expectation of kindness and honesty and being useful and working hard," he said.

One of the cornerstones of being a good boss was how he treated people who made mistakes.

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His rule was that he insisted that people deliver bad news quickly.

"We are then able to solve it together," he said. "Over time, we were able to drill that into even the most junior person on staff. It might even be the junior person first to identify it was screwed up," he said.

But that rule also meant he couldn't punish the messenger, because you can't convince people to fess up to mistakes if they know they will get themselves into hot water over it.

"No one in my White House ever got in trouble for screwing up as long there wasn't malicious intent behind it," he said.

And then he couldn't help throwing some very subtle shade at the Trump administration when he added (emphasis ours), "And there wasn't any malicious intent, which is why I didn't have scandals. Which seems like it shouldn't be something you brag about," he joked.

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"But actually, if you look at the history of the modern presidency, coming out of the modern presidency without anybody going to jail, is really good. It's a big deal," he said to a crowd (emphasis ours) who laughed, appreciating the context of its subtle reference to the work of the current investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, with shades of a shout-out to the end of the Nixon administration, too.

While no one in Trump's current administration has gone to jail, Mueller is currently investigating the Trump campaign's involvement with Russia.

More from President Obama's on Wednesday.

Starting on June 4, San Francisco is will ban all shared, dockless e-scooters in the city unless the companies operating them have a permit.

Permit applications, which will be given to five companies for 500 scooters each in a yearlong pilot program, opened up on Thursday and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency hopes to give them out by the end of June, meaning that scooters will only be banned for a short period next month.

"We can have innovation, but it must keep our sidewalks safe and accessible for all pedestrians," San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said at the press conference Thursday.

The city voted to slap the three scooter companies operating in the city — Bird, LimeBikes, and Spin — with regulations after several residents complained about how the scooters were routinely blocking or being ridden on sidewalks. Additionally, each company gave city officials little-to-no-notice they were launching their shared, dockless services in the city, drawing criticism from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

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Each scooter service works the same way. Using a smartphone app, city residents can reserve a nearby scooter, ride around on it for a small fee, and, at the end of the journey, leave the scooter anywhere to be claimed by the next rider.

The scooter business appears to be an attractive space for newcomers. At least three other companies, including ride-hailing company Lyft, have make it clear they also want to vie for one of the five permits the city is granting.

Hillary Clinton might be looking for work in Silicon Valley.

The former presidential candidate jokingly said she would prefer to be the CEO of Facebook, if she had the choice, according to video obtained by the NTK Network.

Clinton's remarks came during an on-stage conversation with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, at a ceremony where she accepted Harvard University's prestigious Radcliffe Award. Healey asked Clinton which company she would want to lead as CEO, and Clinton came back with Facebook, with a laugh.

"It's the biggest news platform in the world," Clinton said. "Most people in our country get their news, true or not, from Facebook."

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She continued to explain why she believes Facebook plays a crucial role in modern life, and needs to get its act together amid scandals around fake news and user privacy.

"Now Facebook is trying to take on some of the unexpected consequences of their business model, and I for one hope they get it right because it really is critical to our democracy that people get accurate information on which to make decisions," she said.

However, it doesn't look like Mark Zuckerberg is ready to give up the throne at Facebook anytime soon, no matter how much she might want to be CEO.

The Radcliffe Award is given to those who have had a "transformative impact on society," says Harvard. Past recipients of the award include Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.

Colonizing Mars might be the best chance to ensure the human species survival in the future. In order to adapt to Mar's hostile living conditions, our bodies will evolve in ways that might end up with a completely new species of human. Following is a script of the video.

When it comes to colonizing new worlds, Mars could be humanity's best option.

But the journey won't be like it was in the past for pioneers like Ferdinand Magellan, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, and Neil Armstrong.

This new frontier will be the most extreme challenge yet. It's not just learning how to survive on an alien planet with less oxygen, a weaker gravitational pull, and more harmful radiation. It's enduring the changes that these extreme conditions will have on the human body manipulating it in ways that we can only begin to imagine.

Even astronauts know that you don't have to spend much time off Earth to notice changes. The lower gravity can kick-start a whole list of physical alterations.

Just ask this guy: former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. He lived for a year on the International Space Station. Without Earth's gravitational pull, the zero-gravity weakened his bones and muscles, and expanded the space between his vertebrae, making him two inches taller.

Now the zero-gravity environment in space is more extreme than on Mars. However, these changes could still happen on smaller scales. And if you compound them over hundreds of years and tens of generations, the results could be similar, if not more pronounced.

Basically, humans will adapt to Mars' conditions in one of two ways.

In the first few centuries, our skeletons and muscles will likely shrink and we'll become meeker versions of our Earthling counterparts. This would almost certainly lead to shorter life spans and health complications, including neurological disorders if our skulls shrank with the rest of us.

So to survive, we may — over millennia — actually undergo the opposite reaction evolving stronger, more robust bodies like the "Tharks" in Edgar Rice Burroughs' sci-fi novel "A Princess of Mars."Though, us having six arms and green skin is less likely.

In fact, some scientists think we'd actually develop orange skin, not green. Turns out, the carotenoids that make carrots, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins look orange offer a certain amount of protection against harmful UV radiation.

When we eat these pigments in large amounts, we actually get a boost of protective carotene in our bloodstream and under our skin. So, yes, eating too many carrots can turn you orange!

But it may also be a great defense against cancer on Mars. The planet's thin atmosphere lets in massive amounts of UV, and other high-energy, radiation compared to Earth.

For example, the average Earthling receives about 3 millisieverts of radiation per year vs. the 30 they would get on Mars. To compare, here's the minimum dose it takes to increase cancer risk. Compound the annual radiation levels on Mars over a lifetime and the average Martian would receive 5,000 times more radiation than someone on Earth.

And our big, orange bodies may not just look different on the outside. One of the most profound changes we could have coming is the next species of human!

Higher levels of radiation on Mars' surface would mutate the DNA in our cells at an accelerated pace. Normally, a species like homo sapiens could take a few hundred thousand years to evolve on Earth but some scientists say the higher mutation rate could spawn new human species within centuries — 10 times faster than on Earth!

So, if the radiation didn't outright kill us, the mutations that survived would be passed down through generations ultimately diversifying the gene pool and allowing natural selection to do its job.

As exciting as it may sound, there is a potential downside to all of this. If, one day in the future, a Martian falls in love with an Earthling it can only end in tragedy. The immune systems of Martians and Earthlings will be completely different. And a meeting between the two could be just as deadly as when two foreign groups have met in the past, like the European settlers who gave smallpox to the Native Americans.

Also — depending on how genetically different they are — even if they could meet they may not be able to have Martian-Earthlings of their own, since only closely-related species can reproduce.

Moving to Mars may be the best chance for humanity's survival. But it may not be humans who live there, in the end.

Before there was the car-based crossover SUV there was the car-based pickup truck. Ford had the Ranchero and Chevy offered up the now legendary El Camino. More recently Australia's Holden produced the Maloo.

Now Honda has entered the fray with a Civic-based pickup. Think of it as the Civic-amino, if you will. And it's based on not just any Civic but the Civic Type R — the fastest Civic of them all.

Honda

The Honda Civic Type R is the creation of the product-engineering department at Honda UK.

"This Civic Type R Pickup Truck concept by the special team at our Swindon-based plant demonstrates the passion and commitment of the team there - going above and beyond outside working hours to deliver the final product," Honda UK executive Phil Webb said in a statement.

Honda

Codenamed Project P, the Civic pickup is based on a preproduction Type R road car but with the roof and rear cabin cut out and replaced with a truck bed.

The pickup shares the same powertrain, suspension, and gearbox with the standard Civic Type R. This means the Civic-amino will still do 60 mph in less than 6 seconds and reach a top speed of at least 165 mph.

The Honda Civic Type R is powered by a 306-horsepower 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four-cylinder sending power to the front wheels through a six-speed manual transmission.

Honda

According to Civic Pickup's project lead, Alyn James, the company is even thinking about taking it to Germany's legendary Nürburgring to make a run at the record for the fastest front-wheel-drive pickup.

As cool as the Civic-amino may be, it's unlikely it will ever become a production model.

"There are no plans to put this into production," Webb added. "But we will be using it to transport our lawn and garden products as and when required!"

 

Markets Insider

MoviePass owner Helios & Matheson was down more than 10% Friday, hitting a fresh record low of $0.40 a share.    

The recent turbulence for Helios & Matheson began in mid-April when its internal auditor said there was "substantial doubt" the company would be able to stay in business. A few weeks later, the company said it burns about $21.7 million a month, and that its shrinking cash pile is down to $15.5 million. 

MoviePass' leadership has suggested the company will climb its way out of the hole by using its $300 million "equity line of credit."

Helios & Matheson shares are more than 98% below their October all-time high of $32.90, hit shortly after the company acquired MoviePass.

 

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Editor’s Note: DIGITAL HEALTH BRIEFING will not appear Monday, May 28, due to the Memorial Day holiday in the US.

BUOY HEALTH, CIRCULATION PARTNER TO EASE PATIENT JOURNEY: Buoy Health, an interactive web app that uses AI to suggest diagnoses and recommend the appropriate type of care to users, announced a partnership with Circulation, a platform that transports patients to care facilities using ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, per Business Wire. The partnership will ease the patient journey, providing users with an end-to-end healthcare solution that follows them from their initial symptom assessment through transportation to an appointment, if necessary. The companies expect an integrated launch rollout by the end of 2018.

Buoy Health and Circulation aim to reduce some of the friction patients face when seeking care.

The partnership is a boon for health systems and insurers, and may help to retain patients and customers, and drive down associated healthcare costs. The US healthcare system loses $150 billion annually due to missed appointments, according to Health Management Technology. At the same time, adding an additional channel to care helps partnered health systems reach customers that might otherwise go to a different location, or not seek out care at all. Furthermore, because Buoy Health informs patients of the type of care necessary according to their symptoms, health insurers are less likely to have to payout claims for more expensive — and often unnecessary — emergency department or urgent care visits.

It's likely that similar services will become more common as healthcare organizations work to navigate the rapidly changing US healthcare market. Patients are gaining more control over the way they access care and engage with healthcare providers. This forces healthcare organizations to consider a more active approach in how they engage with new patients and retain their current customers. Services that can facilitate these transactions, such as the tie-up between Buoy Health and Circulation, will rise in popularity to accommodate the changing market.

NEW DATA BREACHES HIGHLIGHT HEALTH SYSTEMS’ OUTDATED CYBERSECURITY: Two separate cyberattacks on Indiana-based Allied Physicians and Maryland-based LifeBridge Health occurred within days of each other, according to Healthcare IT News. While Allied Physicians officials are still working to understand the scope of the breach, LifeBridge reported as many as 500,000 patient records — including social security numbers — were exposed. Moreover, while the breach was only uncovered recently, it occurred nearly two years ago.

These attacks underscore an ongoing concern for the healthcare industry: Four in five US doctors have experienced a cyberattack of some sort, according to a study by Accenture and the American Medical Association. There’s been a surge in the use of electronic health records (EHRs) — and Business Insider Intelligence forecasts that by 2025 nearly all health facilities will use EHRs — but health systems’ cybersecurity efforts haven’t kept pace, leaving US physicians feeling concerned for the future. Only 15% of organizations employ a designated C-suite leader to manage enterprise-wide data security efforts, according to a recent Black Book Research study. This failure to adapt leaves legacy data security systems vulnerable to hackers, and the results are costly — the average healthcare data breach puts a $700,000 hole in a health system’s pocket, according to Net Diligence. Providers should commit more resources to shore up their IT security. 

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APP SECURES $50 MILLION TO ADDRESS MEDICATION ADHERENCE COSTS: San Francisco-based startup CareZone — a platform that acts as a medication adherence assistant — added $50 million in funding, bringing its total to $150 million, according to MobiHealthNews. CareZone’s app prompts users to photograph their prescription drug bottles and uses the instructions to send users notifications when it’s time to medicate. The app can also automatically refill prescriptions and deliver new doses to users’ homes. Delivering prescriptions and reminding users to take their medication makes prescription management easier for CareZone’s 3 million registered users, who take an average of six medications. mHealth solutions can help clamp down on the more than $300 billion in healthcare costs from poor medication adherence due to unnecessary hospitalizations, ER visits, and extra tests. An expanding aging population and the rise of chronic disease will lead providers to explore solutions that boost adherence and mitigate ballooning healthcare costs.

Business Insider Intelligence

IN-HOME CARE STARTUP SECURES $20 MILLION: California-based startup Heal — a doctor-on-demand scheduling service that brings its staff of primary, preventative, and urgent caregivers to users’ homes — raised $20 million in additional funding to bring its total up to $70 million, according to MobiHealthNews. Heal’s app and web-based service allows users to book an in-home care visit from Heal’s medical staff at a convenient time for the patient. Heal claims that by automating functions like payment and scheduling, primary care visits can last twice as long as the national average. Heal hopes that by offering personalized in-home care with transparent pricing it can capture a portion of the market traditional providers might miss. In-home care services will likely see a boom as an expanding aging population comfortable with digital tools demands more convenient care. There’s been a slew of other startups expanding their efforts in this market — Honor, which pairs seniors with living assistance caregivers, announced $50 million in additional funding and insurer Clover Health launched a new in-home care program in May 2018.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Two minds may be better than one, but one mind connected to millions of others would be infinitely superior.

That's the thinking behind several companies that are currently racing to link mind and machine by way of devices called brain-computer interfaces. The first to put the functionality of a laptop in your head would pave the way for people to communicate seamlessly, instantly, and with whomever — or whatever — they want.

So far, two figures are publicly leading that race: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Their clandestine projects, known as Neuralink and Building 8, respectively, focus on approaches that will require brain surgery, according to researchers familiar with their efforts.

But there's a less ambitious and less invasive way to tackle the brain-computer interface problem. It involves translating data from brainwaves into simple commands that can be processed in an app or device. A startup called Nuro is taking this route. It hopes its software platform can give the ability to communicate back to people who've lost it as a result of severe injury or disease.

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Outside researchers say the approach is simpler and less functional than invasive approaches, but easier to put into practice.

If Nuro's product succeeds in that initial market, the company plans to expand the technology and test it more broadly in cars and homes. As a result, the company could shape the broader future of technologies that link mind and brain.

Communicating with thoughts

Nuro / Francois Gand In April, Nuro opened up for the first time about a version of its software called Nuos, which is designed to give a voice to people who've experienced spinal cord injuries or other major illnesses and can't communicate as they once did.

Nuro CEO and founder Francois Gand envisions the system for use first in a hospital or intensive-care setting. It could allow so-called "locked in" patients to do things like ask for a glass of water or play music on an Amazon Echo smart speaker.

Gand has test-driven his tool in at least one person with a severe brainstem disorder, and recently showed me how a Nuro user could interact with the technology using a tablet. A black and teal screen is divided into tiles with icons and pre-written messages displaying basic commands like "I need water" or "I'm feeling cold." By focusing intently on a given icon or piece of text, a user can select that tile.

It's the same idea used in neurofeedback, a practice in which people use real-time displays of brain activity to do things like play basic video games in order to better regulate their brainwaves.

Nuos users could even use that technique to type custom messages using a keyboard on the screen.

An OS that runs on brainwaves

Computer interfaces powered by brainwaves aren't completely new.

lwpkommunikacio/flickr

Before Stephen Hawking settled on the Intel setup he primarily used to communicate, he tested several EEG-based caps. But because of his age and the severity of his condition, the caps couldn't get a strong enough brain signal to function properly.

Studies suggest that EEG technologies have the potential to help thousands of other disabled people, though. Every year, roughly half a million people across the globe injure their spinal cord, according to the World Health Organization. The authors of a 2018 paper published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience called the use of EEGs for people with disabilities "a novel approach of the 21st century."

"Development of a brain-computer interface technology that does not replace but complement[s] existing therapies is a...promising field," the authors wrote.

But Gand envisions Nuro's technology — which is essentially an operating system, or OS, that runs on brainwaves — extending far beyond a hospital, to people's homes and even cars. That's something automakers are interested in. In January, the Nissan revealed it was working on helping drivers avoid crashes using EEG data.

"Fundamentally, we're an OS company," Gand said.

Investors see Nuro's potential to expand, too. The company, whose team is based in Waterloo, Canada and San Francisco, California, got a $100,000 grant from Google to build a part of its system in the Google Cloud platform. Nuro also recently got $250,000 in seed funding from Silicon Valley biotech accelerator IndieBio, and $40,000 ($31,000 USD) from Canadian startup hub Waterloo Accelerator Centre. And it won two MIT competitions (Hacking Medicine and the MIT Barracuda Bowl) at the South by Southwest festival, which brought in $7,500.

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Karen Moxon, who runs a lab focused on brain-computer interfaces at the University of California, Davis, told Business Insider that she's not surprised by Gand's vision. A less invasive and more user-friendly brain-computer interface is ripe terrain for future advancements.

But Moxon expressed concern about some of the technical and financial roadblocks Gand might face, such as raising and making enough money to stay financially viable over the long term.

"This has been done well by gobs of people — but in a laboratory setting," she said. "Being able to do it isn't surprising; translating it to a company that can be financially viable is another."

The race toward a superpower: Where Neuralink and Facebook are headed

Elon Musk. Lucy Nicholson/Reuters As our smartphones grow smaller and more advanced, we grow increasingly dependent upon the services they provide. (Not convinced? Try taking your next trip without opening Google Maps.)

Devices embedded in our bodies and brains are a logical next step.

Zuckerberg said last year that Facebook is working on brain-computer interface technology that "one day will let you communicate using only your mind."

Whether the first brain-computer interface runs on EEG or something harder to access, the first company to nail that technology could rocket decades into the future.

"Just being able to communicate at the speed of a BCI without having to speak or type would have a radical effect," a former Neuralink employee who asked to remain anonymous told Business Insider. "It's not so much a race to a long-term goal as much as it is a race to a near-term goal in which somebody gains a metaphorical superpower that enables them to start accelerating faster than anyone could catch up."

Musk and Zuckerberg have both kept details about their progress toward achieving this superpower under wraps.

But there are some clues. Several former Neuralink employees told Business Insider that they were engaged in building microchips and small electronics that could eventually be tested on animals. They said employees of Neuralink have frequently interacted with people researching the subject of animal testing.

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Andy Fell, a communications director at the University of California, Davis, confirmed to Business Insider that several university employees were actively working with Neuralink on research projects using mice.

Facebook, meanwhile, does not yet seem to have plans to open an animal-testing facility in California, according to a public records request filed by Business Insider with the California Department of Health.

Given how little we know about the brain, experts say it's unlikely that we'll see an invasive, surgery-based BCI used on a person within the next few years.

That's where Nuro comes in.

"We want to be as safe as possible. We're not inclined to open up the brain. For some people who might ask, 'are we hacking the brain?' doing it non-invasively kind of solves that issue," Gand said.

From hospitals to homes: Bringing apps into the Nuro ecosystem

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In addition to allowing "locked-in" patients to communicate, Gand's Nuro system is set up to give doctors or physicians access to a separate interface from the one users see. That would allow for remote monitoring of people with a severe injury or those at risk of a stroke.

The software is also capable of passively collecting data on brain activity, including the various levels of brain waves linked with alertness and sleep.

The Nuro system could therefore detect aberrant patterns of brain-wave activity, like those exhibited by people at risk for neurological problems like stroke, Gand said. Health professionals monitoring the situation remotely could use those observations to inform decisions about calling for emergency assistance.

But Gand hopes that if his OS moves beyond the medical setting, people using Nuro within the home would have access to a wider range of EEG-enabled activities than someone in the hospital.

Home users could eventually see features designed to speed up the communication process, such as a faster and more dynamic keyboard that could be used in conjunction with applications like news apps and social-media platforms. In the future, Gand also envisions developers creating versions of their apps that are compatible with the Nuro ecosystem, just as they currently are with Android or iOS.

"We can also give you the ability to have your app controlled neurologically," Gand said.