time-best-inventions
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Yoni Shtein
Yoni Shtein is the CEO and co-founder of Laguna Health, a New York and Tel Aviv company building conversational AI copilots for payer care teams. Born in Chisinau and raised across continents, he moved from an elite Israeli Air Force unit to writing code at Microsoft, then to running more than half a billion dollars of investments before turning entrepreneur. Laguna landed on TIME's Best Inventions of 2024. Shtein pairs an investor's skepticism with a runner's stamina and an immigrant's comfort with the unfamiliar.
Vik Kashyap
Vik Kashyap is the founder and CEO of Toi Labs, the San Francisco company behind TrueLoo, an AI-enabled toilet seat that quietly turns ordinary bathrooms in senior living communities into a source of passive wellness data. A Harvard graduate and former Battery Ventures associate, he previously built Canopy, a consumer healthcare SaaS company acquired by Aetna and later CVS. TrueLoo was named a 2024 TIME Best Invention and is deployed across dozens of senior communities. He holds about 10 patents and has been cited or quoted in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The New York Times, and Science Translational Medicine.
Satoshi Sugie
Satoshi Sugie is the Co-founder and CEO of WHILL, a San Mateo-based personal mobility company that has reimagined the electric wheelchair as a design-forward consumer product. Drawing on his automotive design background at Nissan, Sugie co-founded WHILL in 2012 with a mission to redefine how people perceive and use mobility devices. Under his leadership, WHILL has grown to 350 employees, expanded to 30+ countries, raised over $153 million in funding, and deployed nearly one million autonomous rides at airports worldwide including Tokyo's Haneda, Rome Fiumicino, and Narita. Named to Silicon Valley Business Journal's 40 Under 40 in 2017 and recognized by TIME Magazine's 50 Best Inventions, Sugie's approach treats mobility not as a medical necessity but as an aspirational lifestyle product.