TEDxSalford

Speaker Announcement – Thad Starner

Thad Starner received a PhD from the MIT Media Laboratory, where he founded the MIT Wearable Computing Project. He has a massive head start on the rest of us when it comes to “wearable computing”. He’s been wearing computing, of varying types, since 1993, long before the rest of were struggling to come to terms with dial-up internet. You might think of “augmented reality” as a pretty newfangled concept, only really arriving alongside certain iPhone apps; Thad coined the phrase in 1990.

Not surprising, then, that he’s the founder and director of the Contextual Computing Group at Georgia Tech and the Technical Lead/Manager on .

Thad’s been ahead of the curve on a number of other tech concepts too.  His groups’ prototypes on mobile context-based search, gesture-based interfaces, mobile MP3 players, and mobile instant messaging foreshadowed now commonplace devices and services.

Thad is considered to be one of the original pioneers of wearable computing as well as human-computer interaction, augmented environments, and pattern recognition. He’s a strong advocate of continuous-access, everyday-use systems; like your smartphone today, and perhaps like Google Glass tomorrow. His work frequently attracts media attention and he has demonstrated it to a number of companies ranging from Merrill Lynch and NYSE to BT, IBM, and Motorola.

The passion of specialists for over two decades now, could wearable computing finally be about to explode into wider public consciousness? It could clearly evolve in all kinds of interesting directions: Thad himself is working on technology to translate sign language for those who do not understand it, and wearable computing for dogs.

We are delighted to announce that Thad will be speaking on stage at TEDxSalford 3.0, which will be held at the Lowry Complex, Salford Quays, Greater Manchester, on 10th November 2013. Take a look at the other speakers we have lined up for the conference on our dedicated speaker page, and book tickets here.

If you want to keep an eye on Thad in the lead up to the conference, .