Our Co-Founder and VP of Advanced Technologies, Jonathan Gould, headed to CES in January for the latest in consumer technologies.

 

By: Jonathan Gould

Co-Founder and VP of Advanced Technologies at K4Connect

 

Lots of tech that is now real…

Overall, CES 2020 felt like one of those years where things we saw in the last two years actually became real. Technology like OLED displays, Artificial Intelligence, and many new Smart Device categories over the last years felt a little undeveloped and futuristic (and generally overpriced if you could even buy them).

This year, those things were ready for primetime and at a much more affordable price. Huge vivid television displays were found in every booth. 3D printing machines were quickly generating intricate models on machines that fit on a desk. VR/AR glasses immerse you into different worlds, letting you ride dinosaurs or climb the pyramids.

But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of dreamers out there. Uber promises soon to give you rides in a self-flying car.

And some things just disappeared…

Looking back at prior years, some ideas haven’t made it. The once-popular idea of a tablet that folds into a phone hasn’t really happened. New ways of devices talking to each other, like Thread and Bluetooth 5 Mesh, haven’t gained much traction. While there are a few hold-outs, most appliance manufacturers have given up on the idea of connected appliances with big touch screens on the door.

Instead, many of these grand ideas have turned into more subtle, and arguably more useful, technology. While you may not stand in front of your fridge ordering online grocery delivery on the door, it still may be connected to the internet, but to communicate with the service department when there’s a problem, or remind you to change the water filter. Many device manufacturers have spent the year improving existing IoT protocols, like Z-Wave, not replacing them with something new.

Artificial Intelligence is everywhere, especially in health!

From your shoes to your hat, and every piece of clothing in between Artificial Intelligence promises to help you walk more, stand up straight, drink more water, eat healthier, and sleep well. The sensors are getting smaller, the batteries are lasting longer, and the intelligence that interprets all that data is getting smarter.

While many of these devices are standalone and require their own app, there’s a promising future of bringing them all together to give you the information you want to know, and the help you need to live a healthier lifestyle. Just like smart home devices, there are a few standards emerging that will allow these devices to communicate up to a single place.

Things that talk to each other, don’t always talk well…

While some IoT standards have fallen by the wayside, there still are too many devices out there that can’t communicate with each other because they speak different languages. As more and more manufacturers work to make their devices “smart”, they often come up with their own ways to communicate with the device. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult to connect them to other devices that could make them smarter.

That’s why you need an ecosystem like K4Connect’s FusionOS. Our platform allows all of these disparate devices to work as a single cohesive system. We don’t make our own devices, we do the hard work to connect other companies’ products into one system. This gives the user access to all the smart devices in their home, and all the advantages they can provide, through a single app, voice, or even automated scenes to make their home truly responsive.

We are constantly improving our technology and K4Community, our flagship product. The feedback from our Members is a huge part of our process.

 

By: The K4Connect Product Team

February 20, 2020

As a mission-centered company, serving our customers and members in the best way possible is always our top priority. There are a number of ways we ensure that holds true throughout our organization, including how we develop and enhance our core solution, K4Community. One of the ways we do this is with first-hand feedback through our K4Connect Product Design Program.

This process ensures that K4Community, our flagship technology solution designed for senior living communities, remains relevant, useful and essential to our core users/customers. Through a variety of avenues, we’re reaching out to our customers to demo functionality under development, test upgrades to existing features or even Beta test new features queued for release. This could be a cadence of conference calls, surveys, polls or usability tests, or even busing a group of residents to our office for lunch and discussion with our engineers. 

“At K4Connect we use cutting edge technologies and processes used by Silicon Valley companies and apply them to make sure we have the best user experience in senior living technology. The Product Design Program plays an integral role in this by ensuring feedback comes directly from our users,” said K4Connect Director of Product, Malaika Paquiot.

So, who participates in this type of program? Our participants span senior living community staff who are using K4Community daily, or will be soon, often including:

• Life Enrichment Directors
• Maintenance Personnel
• Culinary Directors
• Resident Super-Users
• Family Members

 

As one of our “super-users” Susan Drury-Rohner, Wellness Director of The Cardinal at North Hills, a Kisco Senior Living community, in Raleigh NC said of the program, “I have thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to provide product input over the past year-and-half. As a result, the product has truly grown into something that I feel good about promoting throughout our community and using on a regular basis. I especially value the RSVP system, the ability to print lists, track attendance by program and hopefully enjoy additional resident engagement features we’re excited about. The digital signage has also turned out to be quite user-friendly.”

The feedback we collect is instrumental to the development of K4Community, because the more you value it, the better we can make it!  

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Interested in learning more about the K4Connect Product Design Program? Reach out to us, here. 

The Youngs were instrumental in providing feedback on versions of the product and helping guide their community’s partnership decision. K4Connect VP of Business Development, Ian Sanders, catches up with The Youngs to discuss their experiences using our trial pilot program.

 

By: Ian Sanders

VP of Business Development at K4Connect

At K4Connect, we are always excited to see ever-increasing pace of technology adoption across the industry and the growing focus of executive and board leadership on establishing a long-term strategy. As a result, we have grown to more than 28,000 residents served (our Members) and 120+ communities on the platform – after launching K4Community just four years ago. However, the true focus in all that we do is not on growth, but rather on the people we serve.

Building strong relationships with our customers and members is embedded into everything that we do, from busing residents to our office for a day of product testing and Lunch & Learns with our engineers, to hands-on ongoing support and education with our Customer Success Team. And while we’ve grown significantly over the years, we are very much still at the beginning of the tremendous benefit technology has to offer the lives of older adults.

So, how far have we come? What better way to help tell that story and shed light on the “why” behind what we do, than hearing from one of our very first members.

Rewinding four years from today, fewer than 10 residents had ever used K4Community, our flagship technology solution designed for senior living. One Member of that very small group were Tom and Pat Young, residents at Magnolia Glen – a Kisco community just 10 miles away from our offices in Raleigh, NC offering independent and assisted living. Tom and and Pat volunteered to join a pilot program of five participants to trial our new product and provide feedback to the K4Connect product team.

Little did we know when we started, that this trial would begin a multi-year relationship that would go far beyond simply testing the initial product. Instead, the Youngs were instrumental in providing feedback on versions of the product, helping guide their community’s partnership decision, and even hosting our lead Series A investors from Intel at their home.

As Tom shared with our team just last week, “It was fun for us to be a part of the K4Community journey! We had the K4Connect team sitting right at our dining table making adjustments as we tried the new technology throughout our home. To now see how far the technology has come over the years — and to know we played some part in that — is very exciting.”

The Youngs have found their use of technology has changed, as time has gone by, and the value they see from features they requested in the early days of the trial have become an integral part of daily life. “We have loved the connection to our family through the app, to just pop open our tablet and video chat is such a joy. And we still have the very first tablet from when we started with K4Connect!”

As Ian Sanders, K4Connect VP of Business Development shared with us: “I can’t thank the Youngs enough for their enthusiastic feedback in the early days of our company. To be honest, not all of the feedback in the early trial was positive, but I can’t tell you how valuable it was for our team to come and hear directly from a resident using our platform every day. It made us better, and that same feedback drove a great experience for thousands of their peers around the country.”

In looking back at the last few years, we can always attribute our growth as a company to some great partners, supportive investors, and smart Advocates (our team). Ultimately, however, we can actually trace much of our success back to a few key resident Members, and the Youngs are certainly on that short list. We wouldn’t be where we are today without them. So, Thank You!

Emerging technologies aimed to help older adults find their ‘voice’ and engage can reduce the feelings of loneliness and isolation while improving quality of life.

By: Lauren J Mapp

December 25, 2019

“I love Silicon Valley, I love technology, but it’s mostly 20- and 30- and 40-year-olds building things for 20- and 30- and 40-year-olds,” said Derek Holt, K4Connect president and chief operating officer. “And then we’re surprised and, frankly, often blame seniors for not liking it.”

K4Connect is a company based in North Carolina that focuses on improving technology in senior living communities. Part of the newest wave of technology it supports, which is quickly being adopted by seniors, are voice-controlled products that work to combat feelings of loneliness, Holt said.

A 2019 technology survey from AARP found that one in seven people over 50 own a home assistant or smart speaker product like Microsoft Cortana, Apple HomePod, Google Home or one of Amazon’s suite of Echo products.

“People are really interested in finding new ways to entertain, to find answers to connect with people and to help with their everyday life,” said Barbara Smith, a San Diego Oasis instructor who teaches classes for seniors on using voice tech like Amazon Alexa.

It can reduce feelings of social isolation because people can keep in contact with friends and family without being held back by small cellphone keypads that can be difficult to use for those with dexterity issues. In senior living facilities, voice technology allows residents to find out about daily activities and what foods will be served that day.

Research from a Front Porch senior living residence in Carlsbad found that 71 percent of participants felt more connected to their community when they used voice technology, said Kari Olson, president of the Front Porch Center for Innovation and Wellbeing.

“We need different ways for people to engage in a digital world beyond a keyboard or beyond a smartphone, and voice is that,” Olson said. “The older adult population has actually been comfortable using their voice to control technology.”

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Read the full piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune, here!

With smart home making inroads into senior living, in 2020 we will see the confluence of healthcare data and behavioral data leading to better accuracy in predictions and, hence, providing better services to older adults.

By: Kuldip Pabla

Senior VP of Engineering, K4Connect

December 9, 2019

If you’re working in senior living, you know that the older adult population is experiencing tremendous growth. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2030, all baby boomers will be older than 65 years. This aging will expand the size of the older adult population so that one in every five will be 65 or older.

Given this projection, senior living has reached a pivotal moment with innovation that ultimately will shape the future of the industry. National trends around the next wave of older adults (the Baby Boom generation), ongoing caregiver staffing challenges and an increasingly competitive market for community operators are driving the senior living industry toward technology as a means to mitigate these concerns.

With the continued interest in technology, we’ll see several technology trends arise in 2020:

Proactive voice

As predicted, voice technology has had huge success in adoption by older adults. They like the ease of use and how they’re able to use the technology in a natural way.

In 2020, voice technology will become an integral part of older adults’ lives, with proactive voice.

Current voice solutions require conversation to be initiated by an older adult. With the advancement in voice technologies, and with the maturity of chatbots and custom digital assistants coming into the market, voice will bring a two-way conversation in 2020. Chatbots and digital assistants proactively will be able to initiate conversation based on certain time of the day, but more importantly based on certain events.

For instance, if “smart home” technology (for instance, bed sensors) senses that an older adult got up from bed, then the technology could greet the older adult with a brief rundown of the day, if it is morning. If it is the middle of the night when the resident got up, the technology could offer help.

Machine learning

An abundance of healthcare data are available via government records, healthcare professionals, pharmacies and insurance companies. Certain companies already are making use of these data to predict health problems and prescribe medication or lifestyle changes. What they do not have, however, is access to behavioral data of older adults.

With smart home making inroads into senior living, in 2020 we will see the confluence of healthcare data and behavioral data leading to better accuracy in predictions and, hence, providing better services to older adults.

The emergence of WiFi Doppler imaging

Personal emergency response systems, or PERS, and fall detection devices have been hyped for a long time now, and they have failed to deliver on their promises. At last, I am seeing a ray of hope with WiFi Doppler imaging — a technology that uses the WiFi signal and machine learning to generate imaging data that can be interpreted into insights about the movements of people and objects within a given environment.

Consolidation and more players

As the industry evolves and a new wave of older adults who have demands for technology moves into senior living communities, operators will be looking for ease of use and increasing return on investment by integrating point services into holistic solutions. This trend will lead to even more consolidation of feature vendors offering portal solutions as compared with holistic solutions.

At the same time, more players will emerge on the horizon as they see opportunities with this maturity. It will provide competition for good and more options for community operators, allowing them to provide the best in care.

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Kuldip Pabla is the Senior Vice President of Engineering at K4Connect. He has more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry, specifically in Silicon Valley. Before serving in his current position, Pabla was the co-founder and chief technology officer of Cooldimi, an applied artificial intelligence startup focused on building an intelligent systems platform; was the head of innovations and cloud platform engineering at CloudCar, a connected car PaaS startup; and was the senior director of innovations and engineering at Samsung’s Cloud Services Innovation Lab and as part of the managed cloud solutions team at Yahoo!. He also formerly held various innovation and product roles at Sun Microsystems.

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Read the full piece on McKnight’s Senior Living, here!

Almost any definition of leadership will include honesty and integrity as being essential, and while true, I tend to think another particularly critical element for the entrepreneur is to recognize is that they are a member of a much larger team.

 

By: Adam Mendler

November 7, 2019

I spoke to Scott Moody, CEO of K4Connect, about his journey and best advice.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your story and your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. What is something about you that would surprise people? 

Scott: I am not sure there is much left to tell since I am a pretty open book and often share thoughts both liberally and publicly as a way of working through ideas, although that’s likely not a wise trait in today’s day and age! Given my propensity to talk a lot and having never finished a talk or speech in the allotted time, most folks would find it hard to believe I am a bit of an introvert.  Honestly, I am uncomfortable around crowds and if in one, hide to the side or cling to the few folks I do know. While I often speak on stage in front of hundreds of people, I don’t really mingle that well when I am off the stage. I am not what some would call a “glad-hander”, nor am I not much for going out. I’d much rather be at home with my wife and daughters (when they are home, or we are visiting them).

Adam: How did you get here? What failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Scott: First, I don’t really subscribe to this whole idea of failure.  Ideas fail, products fail, companies fail, I’ve even been to entire countries that have failed, but you only fail if you give up. Otherwise, it’s just an experience, and believe me, I have a whole lot of experience! 

Of course, when you are going through whatever issue you are going through, it can certainly feel like a failure at the time and it’s certainly no fun, but I don’t ever really look back with regret.  With time, I look at each event as a valuable experience that hopefully has made me a better person, husband, father, friend, leader. Mind you not great, or even good, but just better.

There are far too many of these “experiences” to relay here but let me just offer one.  A few years ago, not long after we started K4Connect, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  It was benign, but the operation and recovery were more difficult, and longer, than thought. It was certainly no fun, and quite painful, yet as I look back at that time now, I really consider it a blessing. It is one thing to be empathetic to those we serve at K4Connect, but a whole other thing to walk, or for a few weeks not walk, in their shoes.  Moreover, as I went through the various challenges I experienced, I just kept thinking, “what does a poor person do?”. I had a caregiving wife, I had insurance, I had money, but what would have happened had I not, who would have been there to help? I kept thinking what it would have been like for my Dad. While he had a caregiving and loving wife, they did not have insurance and had very little in terms of money. I’m sure he would have recovered, but very likely not as well, certainly not as fast and would have been even worse off financially. There is no doubt that experience helped shape me and our company, serving those that are so often both technologically and economically underserved.  

Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Scott: People often misunderstand the difference between management and leadership. A good manager effectively sees a project through, while a good leader is someone who can inspire and motivate others to a common goal.  Companies can edict who are the managers in a company, but leadership is something earned. Almost any definition of leadership will include honesty and integrity as being essential, and while true, I tend to think another particularly critical element for the entrepreneur is to recognize is that they are a member of a much larger team.  It seems to me that too many entrepreneurs today focus more on self-promotion than that of their company or other team members.  

In my own case, I can remember when the iPhone 5S came out, the first with the Touch ID.  There were tons of articles on the technology, often referring to me as the inventor (I was not), the founder (I was one of the two co-founders) or referring to AuthenTec as “my” company (I was one member of a much larger team).  I found it all very embarrassing, eventually writing a blog post titled, “Startup CEO’s Get Too Much Credit for What is a Team Sport”. You can say what you want about how good Tom Brady is, but there are a ton of coaches, teammates and others off the field that help make that happen.  So, let me make this clear to every aspiring entrepreneur (and remind some existing ones) – you’re worthless by yourself. 

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?

Scott: You need to really and truly understand those you serve to see and solve problems others may not fully recognize.  It is the difference between a manager and a leader, incremental improvements and innovative solutions, 280-character tweets and nuanced strategies. It’s not simply asking a few people what they think. Instead it takes an in-depth understanding, it takes an empathetic walk in their shoes, it takes learning from how others failed, it takes experience. And the best way to do that all quickly – have a good team.

Don’t just follow, don’t believe the hype. Everyone follows. In dot-com era it was all about “eyeballs”, until one day it wasn’t.  More recently, it was all about raising bazillions like WeWork or Uber with the idea of owning the market, until one day it wasn’t.  Fact is that it takes a really long time to be an overnight success. In the end, creating real profits counts, creating real value matters.

Do something that matters.  It’s not about just making money.  Sure, there has to be market, people willing to pay, but the fact is that you have a far greater responsibility than just making money, including your team (the ones that trusts you care about them too), your customers (the ones that are making a commitment to some little puke company no one ever heard of), your community (where your team and customers live), and your investors (the ones that took a bet on your idea to start).  They are all responsible for making your company a success, so that success does not all belong to you – either egotistically or financially.  

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Scott: Ok, this may sound stupid, since this is supposed to be about startups, but the most important piece of advice I ever received wasn’t actually a piece of advice, it was more about what I saw, what I felt.  My parents struggled financially most of their lives, did not always have an easy life and I can assure you that when I was a teenager, I certainly did not make it any easier especially for my Dad. Yet no matter what, no matter what he was going through personally, no matter what I may have done, no matter how much I may have thought I hated my Dad, no matter how many times he did not particularly like what I did – or maybe even like me very much – there was not one moment in my life that I did not know he loved me. Not one. I’ve tried to be the same kind of person myself.  Look, Moody is not a wholly inappropriate last name, but I love my family, I love the people I work with, I love the people we serve. Not all in the same way, and maybe I’m not that good at showing it at times, but I do and the example my father set for me was the best advice I’ve ever received.

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Click here to continue reading on Thrive for more insights from Scott!

 

As part of a broader strategic initiative intended to drive smart uses of high-tech solutions, K4Connect has introduced its Workshop & Technology Assessment.

By: Kimberly Marselas

October 29, 2019

Over two days, K4Connect evaluates and educates communities on technology, culminating with a customized ROI report they can use to guide their digital transformation. Core elements of a community’s assessment include infrastructure, communication, environments, services, wellness and insights.

K4Connect is the leading provider of enterprise connected-life technologies for senior living communities, currently serving more than 27,000 residents at over 120 premiere continuing care, independent living, assisted living and memory care communities.

“We recognize that many communities today are just getting started with technology and it’s critical they have the infrastructure in place that prepares them for the future,” said K4Connect CEO, co-founder and Chief Member Advocate F. Scott Moody. “Our Workshop & Technology Assessment method helps the communities we serve better understand where they are today, and the right steps to take as they evolve into what we believe is key to the future of senior living — the transformation toward Smart Senior Living Communities.”

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Read more on McKnight’s Senior Living, here!

 

Voice tech devices tick a number of boxes that appeal to a wide variety of age groups: they’re easy to use and are physically unobtrusive, and their interactivity can be fun. 

By: Tanya Basuarchive

August 30, 2019

Leslie Miller’s days are jam-packed. Being legally blind hasn’t slowed down the 70-year-old resident of Casa de Mañana Retirement Community in La Jolla, California: she frequently gets lunches with friends, goes dancing, reads, and loves to listen to radio soap operas. Lately, she’s gotten into guided meditation.

None of that would be possible without Alexa.

“I just love Alexa,” Miller gushed recently. “She’s been a real life-changer.”

Miller is one of a booming group of older adults who have become enthusiastic consumers of voice technology. Pop culture may be enamored with a stereotypical idea of older people struggling to use gadgets, but it’s a demographic that’s excited to use voice tech in their daily lives.

It’s also a potentially huge market—in the United States, 4,600 people turn 65 every day.

But the idea that the age group is tech-averse is a myth attributable to the technology industry’s penchant for fetishizing youth, says Derek Holt, the president and chief operating officer of K4Connect, a technology company focused on seniors.

“Twenty-, 30-, and 40-year-olds are building things for 20-, 30-, and 40-year-olds,” Holt says. “The misconception is that seniors don’t like tech. But they actually do. They just have a different set of features they are interested in.”

Voice tech devices tick a number of boxes that appeal to a wide variety of age groups: they’re easy to use and are physically unobtrusive, and their interactivity can be fun. 

Miller recounted how she got her Alexa a few years ago, after she met a fellow Casa de Mañana resident who liked his. He noticed that Miller was curious; that Christmas, Miller received a package with an Echo Dot.

That’s when she joined Front Porch, a conglomerate of nonprofits that’s partnered with a group of retirement communities in Southern California. In 2017, Front Porch began integrating Amazon’s Alexa-powered devices into the Carlsbad by the Sea retirement community in the area; by the end of this year, the project will have expanded to seven other retirement communities and the homes of more than 350 seniors.

“We want to meaningfully impact the lives of older adults,” Davis Park, the project’s executive director, says. Park notes that the voice assistants have been incredibly helpful for those, like Miller, with poor vision, and the project has experimented with using Alexa to help people with dementia know where they are if they are confused about their surroundings.

Miller, like most of her fellow residents, finds her Echo Dot helpful for everyday tasks: What’s the weather? Remind me of a lunch with so-and-so. What’s the definition of this word?

That last question is especially powerful for her. A voracious reader, Miller reads Braille but sometimes wants to know what a word means. Dictionaries are often not available in Braille, and she’d rather not bother other people with such requests. Alexa has restored her sense of independence. “I must use her eight to 10 times a day,” she says. 

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Read the full story on MIT Tech Review, here!

“I’m telling you, if you want to climb that corporate ladder or if you want to start a company, it is going to take a lot of work, no matter how smart you are (or more likely, think you are),” says K4Connect CEO, Scott Moody.

By: Wanda Thibodeaux

August 23, 2019

Get rid of the junk philosophies and your path immediately clears.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t want to be successful. But to meet that goal, you have to have a solid sense of philosophies that actually work in the office and ones that are…well, let’s just call them crap.

Scott Moody, CEO and founder of K4Connect, has gained that perspective in part from experience in Silicon Valley. But he’s also had other life experience–brain tumor treatment, deaths in the family, and travels to Rwanda, for example–that have allowed him to separate the truths from the nonsense. And he’s pinpointed the top three myths that routinely hold talented people back.

1. The idea of work-life balance is something to obsess over.

“The fact is, if you really want to climb that corporate ladder, or start your own company, it’s going to take a LOT of work. Sure, you can say that you are only going to work 9-5, and that can work, as long as you talk everyone else in the company, or every other startup in the world, into only working 9-5 — and that is just not happening. It takes work, and that takes time, period.”

Moody says, too, that life isn’t made up of only two things (work and the rest of your life). It’s actually a big mash of many things, such as church, hobbies, and friends. And each of those can get broken down even more, for instance by splitting family into parents and siblings.

“So it’s all a matter of setting priorities. […In] my late 20s, when things were really going well in my career, my wife’s grandmother died, [and…] my eyes were opened when I walked into that church–it was packed. […] It was then that I realized I had my priorities all wrong; that Mary Brugh had touched more people in her life than I ever could no matter how rich I was. The next weekend I spoke to my wife (now of 39 years) about having children…[I] get a lot wrong […], but knowing where my priorities are while working very hard is not one of them.”

2. Failure is a fact of life.

“You hear a lot about failure nowadays, from failure is OK if not desirable to this idea of ‘failing fast’. But I don’t really believe in failure. Sure, ideas fail, products fail, companies fail, and I have been to entire countries that have failed. But you only fail when you give up. Otherwise, it is just an experience.”

In other words, don’t worry about whether you met some crazy, arbitrary, socially-constructed standards. Just worry about doing the absolute best you can, and be aware of what every moment brings to you, objectively learning about yourself and the world at every step. The end result might not be what you expected or wanted, but you’ll still have more information and maturity to direct future decisions than when you started. That’s always a win.

3. The corporate ladder is for everybody.

“I’m telling you, if you want to climb that corporate ladder or if you want to start a company, it is going to take a lot of work, no matter how smart you are (or more likely, think you are),” says Moody. “Take Lebron James or Tom Brady, two people that are naturally talented, but do you really think they won all those rings without working really hard? I mean, really hard. But that world is not for everyone, and you shouldn’t really care what others are doing or telling you to do.”

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Click here to read the full story on Inc.

Scott Moody talks about growing up at the Shore, nearly dropping out of college, leading a company that would be sold to Apple for $400 million and his bid to prove capitalism and technology can be put to use for the social good.

BELMAR — With his company sold to Apple, Scott Moody was perfectly content lying on his North Carolina couch in early retirement, when a mission trip to Rwanda shook him to his core.

He met an American there who helped battered women own and operate bakeries, and he thought he had to do more; the life of leisure could wait.

“To be honest, look man, you meet somebody like that and I was embarrassed,” Moody said. “I think I’m doing good and then you meet this person?”

Moody has helped start K4Connect, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based company that has developed technology for seniors to, among other things, connect with friends and family, keep track of their blood pressure, control the thermostat all from a computer screen.

 

It marks the next stage for Moody, a Jersey Shore native who graduated from St. Rose High School in Belmar and went on to help create the Touch ID feature on Apple iPhones.

And it lands the business in the middle of a question that corporate America is struggling with: Can capitalism be a force for social good? Moody thinks so. He was willing to lose all of his money creating K4Connect. But it doesn’t look like he’ll have to. His new company has raised $27 million in venture capital. 

The company is banking on a growing market. The giant Baby Boomer generation born between 1946 and 1964 is retiring and is ripe for technology that can help them remain independent.

K4Connect has taken innovations that have largely been developed separately — say, health and social networking and controlling the things in your home — and combined them into one product. 

It wasn’t an easy solution; the company has 25 patents, Moody said.

The catch: Unlike millennials, Baby Boomers didn’t grow up in the digital age, so their technical skills can vary, said Robert Rosati, chairman of the Connected Health Institute for the VNA Health Group based in Holmdel.

Some navigate Facebook with ease. Others need help finding the app store. 

“What they’re trying to address here is the whole idea of social isolation, to be more engaged and part of the community,” Rosati said after looking at K4Connect’s technology. “I think they’re on the right path, for sure.”

K4Connect is found in more than 100 senior living communities nationwide with a total of 22,000 members.

Among them is Neptune-based United Methodist Communities, which operates four senior communities in New Jersey and began using the platform in January.

Not only can its residents find out what activities are on the schedule or turn off the apartment lights, but also its staff can better monitor them, said Larry Carlson, president and chief executive officer.”It’s going to take some time for all of us to get accustomed to it, but I think it’s a great idea,” said Harriet Muir, 82, who lives with her husband, Bob, at United Methodist’s Bristol Glen community in Newton, Sussex County. 

Moody, 62, lives in Raleigh with his wife, Katherine. They have three adult daughters, Kelsey, Kristin and Kourtney. And their initials formed the name K4Connect.

Moody met for an hour recently with the Asbury Park Press and USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey at the Stay Gold & Lounge in Belmar. It was steps away from St. Rose, where Moody remembers hitchhiking so that he didn’t have to get up early to catch the bus.

He talked about growing up at the Shore, nearly dropping out of college, leading a company that would be sold to Apple for $400 million and his bid to prove capitalism and technology can be put to use for the social good.

Here are the highlights:

1. Tough times.

Moody’s father was a typewriter salesman who ran into financial trouble and eventually opened the Time Out Tavern in Lake Como. (It became Paddy McDonald’s Ale House before being demolished for single-family homes.)

Moody chipped in, working as a caddie at Spring Lake Country Club and helping at Acme.

“I don’t regret it,” Moody said. “I had super great parents. They just ran into hard financial times. It gave me a good work ethic. I’m not particularly bright, but I work really hard. And I’m not being modest. I have actually the college grades to (prove it).”

2. Back to Acme?

Moody went to North Carolina State University, where he had family nearby. He eventually studied industrial and systems engineering, but during his freshman year, he called his dad and said he wanted to drop out.

“He said, ‘Scott, just do what you can to graduate, I’ll try to help you,'” Moody said. “But he said, ‘If you get a degree and you decide to work at Acme, you can do that. But if you do that and three years from now you decide to do something else, you can’t look at me.'”

“I thought if this is that important to him, it should be more important to me,” Moody said.

“I ended up staying in school.”

3. Yes, that Touch ID

Moody moved to Melbourne, Florida, to take a job at Harris Semiconductor, where he eventually shepherded a project to make a fingerprint sensor out of silicon.

He and his group eventually spun off and called the new company AuthenTec. The company went public in 2007. It continued to invest in research and development during the recession. And it was sold to Apple in 2012 for $356 million.

Apple used the product to create Touch ID for its smart phones. And Moody, then 55, was ready to retire.

“I was burnt out, I was crisped, swore I would never work again, double swore I would particularly not do a start up,” he said. “It’s so much work.”

4. Back to work

When Moody returned from his trip to Rwanda, he met Johnathon Gould, who was trying to develop a system that could integrate technology that had different applications.

Soon after, Moody met Eric Braun, an advocate for the homeless who lived with a disability that gave him a unique perspective: He only had so many good steps in a given day; how would he use them?

Moody and Gould thought their technology could help. Moody returned home and told his wife about it, raising the possibility that he would spend all of their money bringing it to market.

“I don’t think God called us to spend 20 percent of our wealth and if it didn’t work out, go back to a happy retirement,” he said. “I’m going to go all in, I’m going to lose all our money and I’m going to have to get a regular job.”

“Katherine is unbelievably supportive,” he said. “A much nicer and better person than I am. So we went forward. It turns out it’s an exceedingly big market, it’s completely under-served by technology and we subsequently raised $27 million from (investors).”

5. The bottom line

How do you square Wall Street’s thirst for profits with Moody’s goal? 

Moody is putting it to the test.

“I do think the purpose of any business is to serve others,” he said. “And If you do that well in our capitalist society there is benefit associated with that financially. But it’s not just to make money. Honestly, that’s not always how people look at it.”

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