The first instantly-shared camera phone photograph taken by Philippe Kahn of his daughter Sophie.

In a delivery room in Santa Cruz on June 11th, 1997, Philippe Kahn eagerly awaited the birth of his daughter, Sophie. While he waited, he tinkered with a camera, a phone, a laptop and brainstormed a way to capture the moment and share it with loved ones. Within hours, he found himself holding his newborn daughter in one arm and in the other…the first camera phone ever invented.

Just the beginning…

This was neither the first nor would it be the last time Philippe had come up with a brilliant idea. Years before, in 1983, Philippe was CEO and Co-founder of Borland, a $500m software company. A few years later, in 1994, he and his wife Sonia created Starfish Software which was acquired by Motorola in 1998. Later in 1998, he founded another company with his wife, LightSurf Technologies, which was acquired by Verisign in 2005. That same year, he went on to develop his next company, Fullpower Technologies of which he is currently CEO of.

To date, Philippe has over 235 issued patents with the most notable in IoT, AI, and wearable, wireless, mobile and medical technologies. 125+ of those patents are assigned to Fullpower®-AI, a complete platform for rapidly developing and operating AI, big data, medical and wellness solutions and the leader in contactless bio-sensing. Fullpower created MotionX-GPS Drive, a suite of motion sensing technology powered by AI, which has since been used by brands like Nike for their Running App, the Swiss watch industry, and to create the first navigation app to be commercially available on the iPhone.

Fullpower’s other key areas of expertise include “remote monitoring, non-invasive sleep technology, and the development of new technologies for others in the life sciences and biotechnology fields.” One of Philippe’s other passions is something most of us need more of: sleep. Fullpower’s Sleeptracker-AI is a non-invasive long-term sleep analysis solution that is being utilized by companies like Tempur-Pedic and gathers data on sleep to better improve our understanding of sleep. Some interesting recent findings from Fullpower’s Sleeptracker-AI have show a connection between snoring and heart rate as well as lower bedroom air temperature and increased REM sleep.

A Titan then, a Titan now…

Philippe made a tremendous impact on developers in the 80’s and 90’s and many entrepreneurs note him and his work as a huge inspiration for the tech that exists in the present day. Today, Philippe continues to think about new, practical technologies on the frontier and remains a serial inventor, mathematician, engineer, entrepreneur, trustee of the Lee-Khan Foundation, and competitive sailboat racer.

Santa Cruz Works is honored to make Philippe Kahn the first selection to be a Titan of Tech 2021. Tickets on sale soon.