Oculogica is featured in a story by Ken Belson at the New York Times. Click here to read.
Among the offices facing Lambeau Field are those of some of the nearly two dozen tech start-ups in which the team has invested. The Packers and Microsoft each contributed $5 million to a $25 million fund to incubate emerging businesses that focus on health care; sports media and entertainment; supply-chain technology; construction and agriculture; and the environment, areas that overlap with industries in Wisconsin. If the start-ups are acquired or go public, the Packers will receive a share of the proceeds. Craig Dickman, a managing director at TitletownTech, the start-up venture capital fund, said the Packers “have this unique ability to convene,” referring to the team having enlisted university professors and business mentors to help the new businesses.
One of those businesses, Oculogica, created a device, called an EyeBOX, that tracks eye movement to help diagnose brain injuries, including concussions. The company, run by Rosina and Uzma Samadani, sisters who grew up near Madison, Wis., had its EyeBOX approved by the F.D.A. and they are being used by hospitals throughout the country. The Samadanis said the Packers viewed their technology as a potential aid in treating the concussion crisis that has plagued football, and said it has wider applications in emergency rooms, on battlefields and elsewhere.
“I don’t know if there’s another N.F.L. team that would invest in a concussion diagnostic company,” Rosina Samadani said. “At the end of the day, that really says something about their being tied into the community and that they haven’t lost sight of what’s really happening in the world.”