LifeQ, Inc.

Since Apple made them popular, wearables have become a staple for the average person. ⌚ Besides the ease of reading time (if you're not into sundials), they provide a host of other benefits: temperature reading, windspeed, ease of reading, and replying to messages. You know what else they're very good at providing information on? Health. 🚑 And no, I'm not referring to your step count, heart rate, or body temperature: You don't need to dole out $300 for a watch for those, I can do that for you. I'm talking predictive medicine. The ability to compute these data into systems that can predict your risk of falling ill or guess what? Even predict your mental state. I know what you're thinking. "That must be very expensive!" 💰 You're correct...somewhat. See, there's a difference between consumer and medical-grade wearables, the latter being able to provide hospital equipment-grade measurements about someone's health. And that precisely is how all wearables should be, according to LifeQ, Inc.'s CEO, Laurence (Laurie) Olivier. Following his participation as a judge during a tech fair, Laurence (Laurie) Olivier met with two of the losing contestants: Franco du Preez and Riaan Conradie, and pitched to them the idea of having their technology revolve around the human body. The plan? To build wearables that would not only tell you how fast your heart was beating or how much time you spent in REM sleep, but would go on to reliably predict a cause-to-effect relationship between those parameters and your health status. And they succeeded. For example, when COVID was still a pandemic, you would suspect one was ill after having a fever. But LifeQ's software could detect a possible infection way before then, just by computing data from the subject's wearable. Were you about to get depressed? Their software could predict that too. By simply computing data on your time to REM sleep and heart rate, a mental health diagnosis could be made, all from the comfort of your wrist. Remember that chatter about all this being expensive? They figured as well. That's why instead of focusing on building their own wearables, they chose to license their technology instead. Their customers? Bigwigs. Samsung Healthcare, Montblanc, Xiaomi Technology, Louis Vuitton, Tagheuer, Motorola Solutions, Fossil Group, Inc., and so on. All makers of consumer-grade wearables, but now with medical-grade health tracking. With the recent wave of shutdowns African tech startups have faced in the past year, success stories have become few and far-fetched. LifeQ, it appears...is not one of them.