Design of a Visual Communication and Collaboration Software for Afghanistan Milton Chen CTO VSee Lab

“the breakthrough that collaboration gurus have been hunting for” - Jack Hirsch VP of Technology Shell “the world’s best videoconferencing system” - Cdr. Eric Rasmussen Iraq Humanitarian Operations Center Department of Defense

Navy, Office of Secretary of Defense, State Department, NATO, United Nations … Strong Angel Kona, Hawaii July 2004 VSee was selected as the real- time communication system

VSee at Strong Angel Provide global communication from a temporary shelter VIP presentation between Kona and DC

What if there is no pre-existing network infrastructure ?

Ad-hoc peer-to-peer wireless ~ 0.5 mile~ mile

Experiment 1: humanitarian aid convoy The two vehicles sustained 65 mph and were separated by a mile setup screen shot

Experiment 2: air-to-surface awareness In addition to hearing and seeing, can airdrop arbitrary data setup screen shot

Experiment 3: ocean search and rescue

The bottom video was from the live underwater camera held by the swimmer. The map with GPS annotation was shared using VSee setup screen shot

no pre-existing infrastructure leverages what you have –Internet –Satellite –Cell phone ad-hoc peer-to-peer WiFi –Self healing –Laptop + wireless card is all you need

Afghanistan requirements Visual fidelity comparable to high-end Polycom Cheap enough to throw away Secure (FIPS and triple 256 bit AES) Never crash (59-day challenge) Trivial to use (less than 60 seconds for 1 st time users)

VSee –High visual fidelity at practical bandwidth –Internet, satellite, cell phone, and peer-to-peer wireless VSee Lab –Couple of Stanford students 2 nd place at Stanford-Berkeley Innovators Challenge 3 rd place at Stanford Business Plan competition Founded in June 2003 –“Change the world and be home for dinner” Make working from home “beyond being there” Will never get an office (a measure of failure) I would love to hear from you