Newsweek Names PSYONIC CEO One of America’s Top 50 Disruptors

Aadeel Akhtar, CEO of EnterpriseWorks startup PSYONIC, was named one of America’s Top 50 disruptors by Newsweek magazine.

2021 marks the first year the magazine has created such a list. It includes the likes of household names such as Elon Musk and Lizzo, as well as CEOs, scientists, engineers, artists, musicians and others.

“…  (A)ll of these … visionaries and innovators on Newsweek‘s inaugural list of Greatest Disruptors share this critical quality: They are agents of change who are using technology in ways that will profoundly impact our lives—mostly or wholly for the better,” wrote the magazine in its introduction to the package.

The publication recognized Akhtar for his leadership in creating groundbreaking prosthetic devices.

“When Aadeel Akhtar was 7 years old, he met a little girl who changed his life. His parents took him to see family in Pakistan, where they’d been born, and they were walking into a store when he saw her,” writes Newsweek reporter Ned Potter. “She was missing her right leg.”

PSYONIC’s premiere product, the Ability Hand, was released in 2019. The Ability Hand is the first commercially available prosthetic hand to include multitouch sensory feedback. The device utilizes electrical currents to stimulate nerves allowing users to “feel”  what the prosthetic touches.

Akhtar launched PSYONIC in 2015 and the company moved into EnterpriseWorks in 2018.

Newsweek highlighted many talented individuals in the “America’s Greatest Disruptors” series.

“We’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, but also making them accessible and leveling the playing field for all those people who couldn’t get access to this kind of technology before,” Akhtar says in the Newsweek article.

Earlier this year, Akhtar was named to the MIT Technology Review’s list of 35 Innovators Under 35 for 2021.

Akhtar received his PhD in Neuroscience and MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Visit the Research Park website for more information on PSYONIC.