Braze Mobility, manufacturer of blind-spot sensor systems for wheelchairs, has hired Complex Rehab Technology veteran Allan Boyd.
According to a March 15 announcement, Boyd will be Braze Mobility’s new VP of Business Development.
The announcement referenced Boyd’s service as General Manager at Permobil Canada as well as “a wealth of experience in the Complex Rehab industry.”
Boyd also worked in Invacare Corp.’s seating division, for Special Health Systems as Director of Operations, and as partner at Motion Concepts.
Founded in 2016, Braze Mobility designs and manufactures sensor systems that detect obstacles around a wheelchair user and provides audio, visual, and vibration alerts to the wheelchair operator.
CEO and co-founder Pooja Viswanathan, Ph.D., has said the idea for these blind-spot sensors came from seeing immobile residents in a long-term care facility. The residents had been relegated to manual wheelchairs that were too heavy to self propel, and were denied power wheelchairs due to safety concerns. “We saw this as a violation of a fundamental human right,” Viswanathan says on the Braze Mobility Web site.
Regarding the company’s new VP of Business Development, Viswanathan said, “I am thrilled to have Allan on our team. I have a tremendous amount of respect for not only his experiences and what he has accomplished in the industry, but also for his hunger to keep learning and staying abreast of the latest innovations. In fact, I met Allan because of a research-industry partnership while I was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and he was managing Permobil Canada. The timing of Allan’s onboarding could not be better as we at Braze Mobility prepare to accelerate our growth in North America and overseas.”
“I met Pooja in 2014, and have watched her create Braze Mobility from years of clinical research, and evidence,” Boyd said. “Sharing the same client-focused core values, I’m excited to be part of a team bringing this innovative technology that the majority of us take for granted in the vehicles we drive every day, to wheelchairs. I’m equally excited in what lies ahead, as Braze Mobility has many more technical innovations in development.”
The manufacturer is headquartered in Toronto.
