Steve Mann

Steve Mann is a sciborg. He coined the term himself, to define the joining of man and machine.

The inventor of wearable computing, Dr. Mann has been working on his WearComp inventions for more than 20 years. His interest dates back to his high school days and even further – while Dr. Mann growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, in the 1950s his father built what may have been the first wearable radio in the world. Dr. Mann took the concept of wearable computing to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991, founding what was later become the MIT Wearable Computing Project. He received his Ph.D. from MIT in this field in 1997.

Dr. Mann now teaches wearable computing (as well as a course called “How to Be a Sciborg”) to electrical engineering students at the University of Toronto. He was the founder of the first international Symposium on Wearable Computing (ISWC97) and has given keynote addresses on the subject both at the first International Conference on Wearable Computing and at the McLuhan Conference on Culture and Technology.