Megan Gray — a former Google employee — has established herself and her startup, Moment AI, as respected names in the (Artificial Intelligence) AI startup world.

Gray and the Moment AI team are on a mission to integrate health monitoring into the driving experience so that drivers can be alerted to potential deadly health episodes even before they begin to feel ill.

Moment AI has participated in the Softbank and WeWork-backed Emerge accelerator. Gray has also spoken at NVIDIA’s GTC DC and several conferences about the work she and the Moment AI team are doing to make the roads safer for everyone. Moment AI also holds a patent for the technology they’ve developed.

For Gray, Moment AI’s mission is all too personal.

Where It All Started For The Former Googler

When Gray suffered a seizure on a flight one day, she was left completely confused. Up until that day, she had been a healthy young woman with no medical issues.

“It felt like something was kicking me in my head,” she explained to AfroTech.

When she woke up in the hospital, the doctors told her that she had approximately ten seizures and blood leaking in her head. The doctors also told her she couldn’t drive anymore. So, at age 23, she moved back home to Memphis, TN to live with her mother and figure out her next steps. While back home, she became determined to regain her freedom.

“I decided I would build my own technology and that I would eventually drive again. So, I started off building a biosensor, stereo-connected biosensors to a wheel to monitor my brain and my heart and developed an app,” she explains.

From there, she founded Moment AI and built her first prototype. Eventually, she got her first big break — a $25,000 investment from the city of Memphis. Along the way, she was also awarded a Google Developer Challenge Scholarship through Udacity so she could deepen her coding skills.

Industry Recognition

Moment AI’s momentum then snowballed. They were accepted to NVIDIA’s AI Startup accelerator and they participated in Founder University. Then, they were accepted to Emerge, an accelerator program led by Softbank and WeWork.

Now, the Moment AI team — which includes her co-founder, Jacob Sutton — is taking their technology to the next level at George Washington University’s transportation lab.

“Now, we have a team of eight scientists and engineers, engineer, myself, and my co-founder,” Gray said.

To get GW’s attention, Megan and Jacob equipped Megan’s personal car with the Moment AI technology to demonstrate. GW was so impressed with Moment AI’s work that they offered to help build the technology.

“We told them if this is what two people can do, imagine what we could do with your lab, with more scientists, more engineers,” she continued.

Accessibility

While the idea for Moment AI was born out of a personal disability, Gray is now focused on exploring how the technology can serve different segments of the population. Moment AI’s primary product will be a health monitoring device designed to be installed in vehicles. However, she also wants to ensure that her technology is accessible to anyone, regardless of socioeconomic status. To facilitate this, they’re also developing an app that will be accessible to anyone with a smartphone.

“I feel like in society, a lot of things that can help us with safety are not available to the masses because it’s unaffordable,” Megan elaborates. “The roads belong to everybody. And so, my technology should be available to everybody.”

Megan Gray

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