By Christiana Nielson Stephens 

The digital health world as we know it today is booming—with products, artificial intelligence advancements and competition. But, back in the ’90s, there was much less wearable technology that could give you continuous information about your health. You went to the doctor, got blood drawn and had tests run. In between visits, you lived in the unknown.

In 1991, Rosalind Picard was a savvy electrical engineer and recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral graduate. She was ready to take on the technology world. Already, Picard knew she wanted to create technology that helped people. She started designing computers and became interested in how the human brain works to build better computers. She wanted to build an intelligent device that could make sense of the world like people do and began to focus particularly on memory and attention. Picard did not want to be associated with studying emotion because she wanted to be taken as seriously as possible.