Nothing Is Impossible
Tech evangelist
Mick Ebeling redefines
what’s possible in
addressing “absurdities.”
BY RUSS BANHAM
40
“ When you see
things in the world
that are just not
right and should not
be that way, the
absurdity of it gets
under your skin.”
—Mick Ebeling, founder and
CEO, Not Impossible Labs
Every Not Impossible project begins with two fundamental
questions: If not now, then when? If not me, then who?
“When you see things in the world that are just not right
and should not be that way, the absurdity of it gets under your skin,”
says Mick Ebeling, founder and CEO of Not Impossible Labs. “We
have these amazing technologies today at our disposal, but they’re
typically developed to make bazillions of dollars and not with the more
important goal of helping another person in need. That’s what we
start with. And we run with it until we figure something out.”
Ebeling, named by Fortune as one of the Top 50 World’s Greatest
Leaders, is best known for the Eyewriter, an AI-assisted device
enabling the Los Angeles graffiti artist Tony “Tempt1” Quan—who
was diagnosed with ALS in 2003 and became unable to move, speak,
and breathe—to communicate and create art after seven years of
immobility. The Eyewriter tracked the movements of Tempt’s eyes to
produce words and brushstrokes. Time magazine named the device
one of the 50 best inventions of 2010, and it is now in the permanent
collection at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Other projects followed, all focused on what Ebeling and his team
call “absurdities” that result in one person’s not having abilities that
everyone else takes for granted. For each project, Ebeling reaches out
to his universe of friends—software coders, engineers, designers, and
artists—who are eager to join him in making the world a fairer bargain.
These team members have been engaged for the past two years
in two Not Impossible projects, each one inspired by a single person
or group of people with the same condition. Memory: Not Impossible
PHOTOS (LEFT) COURTESY OF NOT IMPOSSIBLE LABS; (RIGHT) BY MAGGIE STEBER/VII/REDUX