AI Shoes That Guide & Heal | Vancouver AI Startup Showcase
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Notes & highlights
Vipul Kansal's talk describes footwear concepts and company-reported practices; it does not demonstrate that an AI shoe can guide or heal. Kansal says his company makes high-technology footwear with massagers at 02:22. At 02:31, he describes a navigation concept in which footwear would guide a wearer toward a destination. These are his product descriptions, not verified measures of accuracy, readiness, safety, or therapeutic effect. The recording presents no medical evidence for “heal” in the title.
Kansal quickly shifts the focus away from technology. At 02:56, he says he wants to talk about empathy and emotion instead. His example is a retailer whose illuminated five-storey building became associated with a family business; at 05:02, he describes it as a third-generation relationship. He presents that story as evidence for his own view that business ties can carry personal attachment beyond revenue.
At 06:42, Kansal argues that connection is central to the business. He then says the company uses solar power and water harvesting at 06:57, and coffee waste in footwear soles at 07:06. Those sustainability details remain attributed company claims; the recording provides no independent audit.
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0:00Incoming transmission from the future Vancouver AI community meetup. [Music] Udav your father's coming up next. Um, one of the cool things about websummit is it gives us Thank you, sir. It gives us this, you know, good excuse to bring all the um ourselves together and to really kind of put out the welcome wagon, right? And so our good buddy Udas, who's a part of this community, um, invited his father over. and his father is a a CEO of a a $500 million Indian shoe company that makes these AI powered sensor shoes that connect via Bluetooth to your phone. And so he runs an R&D lab for products and sensors around AI. Please come here, sir. I
0:42picked him up the other day at the airport and we've had him in meetings since then. And I know you've uh felt more strong other times, but I appreciate you being here. I want you to go next cuz I want you to be able to take some rest. It's been such a pleasure hanging out with you with your son and you're just welcome to, you know, take five minutes, tell people who you are, what you're about and and why you're here. Thank you very much. Thank you very very much.
1:09I tell you something about uh this particular thing, Chris. I'm really grateful to you. You made my life so comfortable in last 2 days and uh let me tell you about it. When I landed from India, it was a 17-hour flight. Another 3 hours and 3 hours prior to that, this entire thing was made so comfortable.
1:31When you were waiting for me at the airport, you took me out for the breakfast and I can tell you one thing. I am telling you that was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. I can assure you that. And this transcends the boundary of our nations. That's the feeling I had always that I always felt earth is one. There's nothing like nations and all. That's how it is. So I am actually here to tell you something about a thought which says as you're wearing a shoe is called a soul and there is a soul here.
2:17So I connect soul to soul. That's what I'm thinking about it. We might be manufacturing world's bestest high-tech footweares. We have inbuilt massagers and all kind of gimmicks you can think of. Your cousin come to you. You say you want to go to Costco and you do not know how to go. You just feed it into it and tell her or him to go away and they just reach out there. Okay? Or you are a biker. You are on a bike, you want to go in the countryside, you put out the GPS locations and the thing goes and takes you off. So these are all the things but no I'm not here to talk about the tech.
2:59It's things beyond that. It's about the empathy and emotions which are contributing out of the products. I tell you about one incident. I was sitting in my office. My state head comes in. He says, "See, we are doing something really remarkable. will come along with us to tier 2, tier three places. Frankly though in India they are very dusty and not very comfortable to be there. So I was trying to resist it but he was like pushing on me very badly. So I had to relent as I I had to go with him. Now we are passing off. It's around 8:39 in the night and it's all forest area. big big boards out there stating that please
3:46stay safe, drive safe. You have big elephants out here. You might be having tigers also here. It's like this. So I was like what is this? Where have you brought me out? Now the vehicle stops on the main road. It's pitch dark all around. He said I asked them what is this? Say see there around 150 m from here in the pasture you see a five-story building. I say yeah. And when I saw it, it was illuminating fully decorated like anything. Then I was made to walk through that grassland. As I reached there, there were 15 17 members of the family standing out there greeting me.
4:28As I go inside, I was shocked. It was one of the most beautiful stores they had built on their own. And every article plays so and span and that meant they were cleaning all the products themselves every day and taking care of it in a very immaculate manner. Every floor I went it was better than the other floor. So I just thought of asking them what are you doing out here because you could have just had a warehouse and been selling all this.
5:02Then he told me a story. He said we the third generation. My grandfather was doing it. My father was doing it. I'm doing it. And this is our heart. This is what we attached to. I said we are not there in every category. Possibly you could have been doing some other brands also. He said not ever because we are not attached to the revenue only is in our blood and even if at any time if I think of doing it my 14 15 members of the family will never never ever allow.
5:38I was like what is this in the world of prophet what are they trying to do? It was supposed to be that I had to return the same in the morning early morning but then I was shocked. I said no I want to see what is happening rest of the places. So I said take me to the retailer who are directly linked to this distributor. In the morning they took me to one of the retailer. I was there.
6:02They told me to stand at the counter and see what is happening. The first customer comes in. He says I want this. He says okay take this. He says can do you have anything more? He puts up one more and says this belongs to this brand. Why you even thinking about it? He says perfectly okay. Within 1 and 1/2 minutes he goes away. In next 1 hour this thing keeps on repeating 11 or 12 times.
6:28Then I ask this guy what is this? The this guy tells me that this brand is in their head in their body and this contributes to their life. Through this experience I understood that whatever we talk about revenue of course revenue is important but that connectivity in every sphere of life is very very important when you do things you might like in my company we have got solar power generation we do all kind of water harvesting we are doing we don't uh we in fact using coffee uh waste in our souls Okay. So we pick it at from the different points and do it. We don't throw garbage. Plastic has a lot of waste. We actually utilize it, recycle
7:21it and utilize it. But whatever connectivity we have with our people like the barometer of success in my company would be something like that. If I have 5,000 people then within few years we should have 10,000. This is our barometer of success rather than talking only about the revenue thing. So I'm really really grateful to you for giving me this chance because this empathy and this uh community building system is what we are also taking care of out there. We are also taking care in terms of our employees and definitely making sure that every part every part of the buildup is doing even we have all kind of people like PWC and KPMG and Deote on
8:08board but that is only to generate energy among our people rather than doing thing anything else and beside that we have a thought process that every member should be contributing. So if any for God's sake any member expires in a family then any kithkin would be given a job in that manner we make sure something like that happens and uh a lot of times you have to compromise in a lot of manners but empathy and this coordination what you are trying to generate Chris lot of power to you please take care of it thank you very [Applause]
8:52Vipo, please come back. Please come back for one second. I just want to say this m this man's name is Vippal Kansel. His company is called um Vaganta and his R&D lab is called Impacto. And so like yesterday we met with Misty West, Lee Christie, who's like pretty much the head of AI hardware type hacking in Vancouver in terms of like a commercial company and they really got down to business. Lee could immediately see what was going on in the the opportunities and stuff. And so if you're into putting sensors and stuff and you need to manufacture them at a scale beyond the 3D printer DIY prototype, if you actually have some success and I want
9:30them to go into production, talk to Udbuff. This kid's amazing. And this is where he comes from. And I really am thankful that you're here. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. [Applause]