The Future Leaders Awards program is brought to you by Mobility Management, a WTWH Media health care brand. The program is designed to recognize up-and-coming industry members who are shaping the next decade of Complex Rehab Technology and mobility/accessibility. To see this year’s Future Leaders across our health care brands, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
Tim Balz, founder and CEO of Kalogon, has been named a 2024 Future Leader by Mobility Management.
To become a Future Leader, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a high-performing employee who is 40-years old or younger, a passionate worker who knows how to put vision into action, and an advocate for Complex Rehab Technology (CRT) and mobility/accessibility.
Balz sat down with Mobility Management to talk about the importance of diverse perspectives in leadership, the concept of constant learning and improvement, and more. Highlights from our conversation are below, edited for length and clarity.
What drew you to this industry?
I’ve been working with mobility devices for years to improve the user experience. Back in high school, I noticed a student in a manual wheelchair who would pull the recycling can between classrooms for pickup.
One day, he was stuck because the recycling was too heavy. When I asked why he didn’t have an electric wheelchair, his teacher said his insurance denied it because he was capable of moving a short distance on his own. I wanted to help, so I found a wheelchair I could repair and then tricked it out so that it would be exactly what he needed.
Later, I started a non-profit to continue this work. I went on to college, studied engineering and won the Intel challenge award for a fully connected wheelchair. I was excited to work on rockets at SpaceX after school, but I kept coming back to my passion for helping people. The mobility challenges people with disabilities face each day are more exciting and rewarding to me than the challenges we were solving at SpaceX.
So, I quit my job, founded Kalogon and hired the best engineers I knew to help me make the world a better place.
What’s your biggest lesson learned since starting to work in this industry?
Engineering doesn’t usually have a lightbulb or “aha” moment. Innovation comes through continuous iteration and validation; just hundreds of small tests and checks continually trying to learn and improve by percentage points from the last test.
If you could change one thing with an eye toward the future of the mobility/accessibility space, what would it be and why?
I would prioritize the development of unified data standards and interoperability across the industry. This would enhance data sharing between providers and payers while ultimately improving patient outcomes.
What do you foresee as being different about the mobility/accessibility space looking ahead to 2025?
When I see technology fail to help people in this field, it’s because the creators don’t understand the need and stakeholders. I would urge innovators to create a feedback loop with as many experts as close to the field as possible – as you continue to iterate, you ensure any changes you make are still in line with what the customer needs and wants.
Set up your design in a flexible way so as it evolves and more people get access, you’re able to roll in what you learn.
In a word, how would you describe the future of mobility/accessibility in the U.S.?
Value-based.
What quality must all Future Leaders possess?
Listening skills. I wish I was a better listener as a whole, and I think a leader’s job is to listen and take as much information from the team as possible to make a decision.
If you could give advice to yourself looking back to your first day in the industry, what would it be and why?
Sometimes, we engineers think we know everything, but we don’t. For Kalogon, as we grew, being able to get significantly more diverse viewpoints from the founding team within the company has significantly improved our culture.
We started as a team of mostly engineers, so having a multidisciplinary team with diverse backgrounds, experiences and mindsets has contributed to the success of our products and daily interactions with customers.
To learn more about the Future Leaders program, visit: https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.