Braze Mobility has been named a Collaboration Challenge Winner as part of the Veterans Health Administration Innovation Experience (iEX).

As part of the program, 19 healthcare innovators, entrepreneurs, and start-up companies pitched “their early-stage solutions for the chance to collaborate with the VA [Veterans Affairs], present at the 2021 iEX Marquee Event in October, and most importantly, impact veteran lives by forging a healthier future,” the VA said in a news announcement.

The iEX described Braze Mobility’s entry as “a terrain analysis system to help wheelchair users navigate outdoor environments more safely and independently using their proprietary machine learning algorithms that identify hazards.”

Pooja Viswanathan, Braze Mobility’s founder and CEO, said in a statement, “I am excited to share that we will be collaborating with VHA Innovation to bring our innovative sensor technology for wheelchairs to veterans across the U.S. A big thank you to Allison Amrhein and all the VA sites that will be part of the collaboration, especially Kalyn Essex, MPA, at the VA Palo Alto Healthcare System, our lead site. Thanks to Founder Institute and my incredible advisor Ryan Micheletti for making all this happen!”

Viswanathan will also speak at the VHA Innovation Experience Marquee Event “sharing our journey at Braze Mobility Inc., co-creating with VA staff and veterans over the past five years,” she added.

Braze Mobility manufactures “the world’s first patent-pending blind spot sensors that can be added to any wheelchair, transforming it into a ‘smart’ wheelchair,” according to the company’s Web site. “Our system provides multi-modal alerts to the user regarding location and proximity of obstacles through intuitive lights, sounds, vibrations.”

Braze Mobility is headquartered in Toronto.