Have you ever wanted to control your computer simply by waving your hands in the air? David Holz and Michael Buckwald definitely have. That’s why they founded Leap Motion, a company which makes technology that lets users operate a computer by moving their hands in front of the screen. Users simply purchase a compact controller, (it’s only slightly larger than a USB flash drive) and then download Leap’s software. Inside the controller are infrared cameras that track all 10 fingers within the eight cubic feet of space in front of your computer. As long as a user’s hands remain within that space, he or she can slash at fruit, move objects, draw, paint, browse the Web, and much more. 

In 2008, Holz started developing the software  due to his frustrations with the limitations of the mouse and keyboard. He spent nearly five years developing the cameras in the controller and eventually developed a prototype. He then teamed up with Buckwald, who was not only an entrepreneur, but also a childhood friend.

Although the prototype was not ideal for giving a demo to potential investors, (it was huge and took more than an hour to set up) Holz and Buckwald had one amazing investor- Bill Warner, the founder of Avid Technology. After investing $25,000, Warner worked with Holz and Buckwald for two years. Warner helped them build their start-up and develop a product that they would want to use. “There was real money being dangled to do military work,” says Warner. “But I encouraged the guys to think of who they love, and to make the technology for them–to build a direct relationship with those people rather than take the easy way.”

Things ended up working out well for Holz and Buckwald. They raised about $45 million from a group of investors and venture capital firms. Also, Leap Motion has grown from just 12 employees a year ago to 80-plus. Leap’s technology launched in Best Buy stores in late July and the company accepted $10 million in pre-sales from its web site, without any advertising.

In 2004,  Shawn Frayne took a trip to a small fishing village near the cost of Petite Anse, Haiti. This village  was not connected to an electrical grid, and the only lighting available was diesel-powered or kerosene-based. A member of an MIT team,Shawn realized that instead of using  kerosene lamps, white LEDs powered by a very inexpensive wind generator might be able to better light homes and schools in the area. Turbine technology, however, is too inefficient at these scales to be a viable option, something Shawn discovered after trying to design this affordable, turbine-based wind generator. Under these difficult constraints of cost and local manufacture,  Shawn invented the world’s first non-turbine wind generator, the Windbelt generator.

The small tabletop proof-of-concept of the world’s first membrane-based, non-turbine generator has since undergone several transformations.  These include: the  microBelt, the Windcell, and most recently the Windcell Panel.  These new inventions are taking wind power into places and applications previously inconceivable. Shawn and his team are aiming to make the Windbelt one of the key tools of energy harvesting in the 21st century.

The Humdinger Wind Energy Team

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