Tan Le

One of the science world’s most successful and influential CEOs, Tan Le started her incredible life journey as a refugee facing a high probability of death on a treacherous trip across the pirate infested China South Sea.

Today, Ms. Le is the founder and CEO of the bioinformatics firm, EMOTIV, where her groundbreaking work in technology and artificial intelligence is making it possible to control electronic devices with something as simple as a single thought.

At age 4, she fled war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded tugboat with only her family and a vial of poison, kept on-hand to commit suicide in the case of a pirate attack. After reaching the shores of Australia, her family built a life from scratch amidst racism and poverty.

Tan Le | Technology Innovation

Ms. Le applied herself intensely in her studies, opening the door to an education at one of the nation’s finest colleges, Monash University and a reputation that quickly earned her the prestigious “Young Australian of the Year” award.

Having grown up in an immigrant community stricken with mental illness, drug abuse, and domestic violence, Ms. Le began her career as a social advocate and became a bridge between Australia’s educated class and the community she’d grown up in. She simultaneously jumpstarted entrepreneurial ventures in neural-engineering technology, driven by her desire to better understand the brain and its effect on how we experience life.

Her company, EMOTIV, is best known for its affordable EEG headset, which collects data from brainwaves as the wearer goes about his daily life. The data can then be uploaded to an online platform created by Tan Le company that makes the information accessible to scientists and analysts around the world as part of an effort to accelerate research on neurological impairments such as depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, autism, and ADHD, among other conditions.

Imagine a world where a quadriplegic can drive a Formula One race car with the power of his thoughts. Where workspaces sense your state of mind and calibrate your environment to optimize your creativity, productivity, and wellbeing. Where marketers can create profoundly personal products and retail experiences. Or, anyone can use their mind to move objects or operate complex machinery. What sounds like science fiction has already happened, thanks to the “brainwear” invented by innovative neurotechnologist and entrepreneur, Tan Le.

A pioneer in the field of bioinformatics and neurotechnologies, Ms. Le and her Silicon Valley-based company, EMOTIV, are at the forefront of wearable devices that will one day be an inseparable part of how we all work and live. Their potential will upend healthcare as we know it, transform the lives of those with physical limitations, and give ordinary people the power to understand and harness the power of their own brains.

If you want to understand what the future holds, and how our untapped brain power will shape it, Tan Le presents a hopeful and inspiring look at how present-day technologies will forever elevate what it means to be human.

About Tan Le

A technology pioneer and thought leader who takes audiences on an incredible journey into the future of humankind, Tan Le is the founder and CEO of EMOTIV, the leader in EEG – Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology.

Her company’s cutting edge “brainwear,” or wearable neurotechnology, allows humans to interface with computers in almost miraculous ways. It has already enabled a quadriplegic to drive a race car with his mind, powered bionic limbs, created the technology to optimize work environments, and given ordinary people the tools to understand and harness their brains’ limitless potential.

More About Tan Le

A three-time TED speaker who has spoken to audiences around the world, Ms. Le has been named as one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology and Forbes’ 50 Names You Need to Know. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Council on the Future of Neurotechnologies and Brain Science and the Forbes Technology Council, where she is a contributing writer on business and workplace-related subjects.

Ms. Le is the author of The NeuroGeneration: The New Era in Brain Enhancement That Is Revolutionizing How We Think, Work & Heal, in which she explores exciting advances in brain science and neurotechnology, including emerging technologies that do everything from help us learn faster to enabling the colorblind to “hear” colors. Ms. Le is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Innovation Research Interchange (IRI) Achievement Award, the G’Day USA Global Innovation Award, the Advance Global Australian Award for ICT, and the AutoVision Innovation Award.

In addition to her professional accomplishments, Ms. Le brings the inspiring life story of a Vietnamese refugee and “boat person” who arrived in Australia at the age of four with her mother and sister. Her remarkable journey from a squalid refugee camp to being named “Young Australian of the Year” for her community work and having her portrait added to the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, is told in her 1.4 M+ views TED Talk, “My Immigration Story.”

Now based in San Francisco, Ms. Le continues to champion causes close to her heart, including STEM education, women in technology, and technology for mental health. She was a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Technology for Mental Health and a director of Plan International Australia, one of the world’s largest community development organizations focused on ending childhood poverty.

She has been an Ambassador for the Status of Women since 2001.

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