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01.23 | THEBURGNEWS.COM | 21 "I'm thrilled that Jay's here," Darr said. "e way it all kind of happened—to structure the CIE almost like a business within Harrisburg University. We gave Jay the authority to build programs to work with founders the way he wants to—the way he would as a founder." HU's CIE invites applicants from the Harrisburg community and beyond. Of the nine founders currently in the program, only one is university-related. "We hope, by having them come here, it creates new companies and jobs in this region," Jayamohan said. Jayamohan and his network mentor the incubator's founders. ey help them form corporations and connect them with funding resources. ey help them find pro bono attorneys for their intellectual property. ey help them flesh out ideas. ey provide support staff. ey connect them with technology and software development partners. ey network. In turn, founders who graduate from the incubator remain available as mentors to new founders. "e center is for anybody who has an idea," Jayamohan said. "It can be anybody who just has a concept, but doesn't know where to start." IDEA IS BORN Sharina Johnson was a military kid who moved a lot until her family landed in New Cumberland. After graduating from Dauphin County Technical School, she moved to Baltimore. She joined the Army Reserves while in high school. In 2004, she was activated and sent to Iraq for a year. Coming home was difficult. She didn't realize that she had PTSD. A highly functioning addict, she graduated from Morgan State University with a telecommunications degree. She slipped further into addiction. Finally, in 2018, she went into treatment. at journey sparked an idea, but a multicultural business event in 2021 featuring a presentation by CIE fueled it. Today, Johnson is part of the incubator and has secured $100,000 from four investors for an application called "Arcana Recovery," which will connect veterans with local resources. On a web platform, it will offer recovery support services, client management systems and data presentations. It will be able to track users' moods. It also will include a wellness assessment that she hopes will be able to predict a relapse or spot people at risk for substance abuse. Johnson hopes to launch her full product in June. Until then, she will continue to work within the CIE streamlining her product. I WAS HOME Segal, the NAQI founder, arrived similarly to the CIE—with "just a big idea and a few patents." He said that his company wouldn't be where it is without the CIE's help with public relations, exposure and introductions to other big companies and investors. ose introductions led him to a New York venture group that led him to Mark Godsy, now a co- founder and CEO of NAQI and one of the biggest biotech entrepreneurs in Canada. "I basically said, 'I'll give you the keys to the car,'" Segal said about meeting Godsy. Together, they have created an invisible, thought- controlled operating system that works with earbuds and head muscle contractions so users can control computers, wheelchairs and more. "NAQI gives a silent, inconspicuous, invisible, multidirectional communication and navigation for everything," Segal said. "Nobody would know what you're doing." Segal's "aha!" moment came in 2013 when he read about a soldier home from Iraq who was fitted with a thought-controlled prosthetic arm. It enticed him to Google "thought-controlled computing." He started drawing patterns trying to figure out a thought-controlled OS. He got his first patent. He had a concept and a patent, but his motivation came from a local man who was being treated at the Penn State Health Spinal Cord program. Now a close friend, this man, who is paraplegic, has joined development and executive meetings at NAQI to help inform their work. "Meeting him changed the way I view all of this," Segal said. "It happened for a purpose—he was my purpose." By the end of the first quarter of the year, Segal hopes to have a new design complete and a small run manufactured for user testing. His long-term goal is to complete an application programming interface that will allow other companies to integrate his OS into their products. "Eric [Darr] has brought the region's top innovative minds together with an open door to other start- ups. It's almost like the Statue of Liberty—come in," Segal said. "e moment I met the team at HU, I knew I was home." e Harrisburg University Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship is located in Strawberry Square in downtown Harrisburg. For more information, visit www.cie.harrisburgu.edu. Dave Segal NAQI Devices Sen. John DiSanto, Sharina Johnson and state Rep. Patty Kim

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