Sensory Bridges, LLC
The Founder's Journey
Megan Cales
November 2024 — April 2026
"With the Brooks Band, we're not just helping people speak. We are helping them be heard."
The Origin Story
On November 28, 2024, Megan Cales watched a five-year-old boy in her family — who is autistic — struggle with voice volume awareness. She searched for a wearable tool that could help him self-regulate in the moment. Nothing existed.
Within weeks, she filed a MOCS Innovate! mini-grant proposal through UTC's Clarence E. Harris Chair endowment. She won. That single grant — funded through UTC's own innovation infrastructure — launched what would become Sensory Bridges, LLC.
UTC's Commercialization Counselor guided Megan through the invention disclosure process and connected her to patent counsel. The Harris Chair of Excellence in Entrepreneurship provided institutional sponsorship through the Max Fuller Center.
From that single UTC-funded grant, Megan has built a company with a filed non-provisional patent, an enterprise hardware partnership with a major consumer technology platform, active partnership conversations with a major educational assessment publisher, an IRB-approved intercollegiate research study, and a live application collecting user feedback — all while maintaining her full-time position at UTC and raising her son as a single mother.
Complete Milestone Timeline
| Date | Milestone | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 28, 2024 | Conception date | Inspired by a child in Megan's family |
| Jan 2025 | MOCS Innovate! mini-grant awarded | UTC's Harris Chair endowment funded the first step |
| Mar 5, 2025 | Provisional patent filed | US Provisional No. 63/767,320 |
| Mar 2025 | I-Corps SXSW cohort | 100 stakeholder conversations at South by Southwest |
| April 2025 | NSF I-Corps Mid-South Hub | 25 structured discovery conversations; placed 1st in pitch |
| Summer 2025 | Bring Your Own IP — Life Science TN | Statewide biotech cohort |
| Summer 2025 | INCubator acceptance | Entered Chattanooga's primary startup accelerator ecosystem |
| Fall 2025 | IRB Protocol #2025-0084 approved | Research and user testing |
| Fall 2025 | Neurotech Frontiers | Relationships with leading autism-innovation research centers |
| Fall 2025 | Selected to showcase at LaunchTN's 36|86 | Statewide visibility |
| Fall 2025 | Board of Directors formed | Early investor from a major health information company joined as Board member |
| 2025 | UTC Fly Pitch Competition | Placed 2nd |
| 2025 | ChaTech Early Innovation Award | Finalist |
| Winter 2025 | Regional children's institute collaboration | Strategic partnerships initiated |
| Dec 2025 | Mid-South I-Corps Pitch Competition | Placed 1st; 88 applicants across UTK and Vanderbilt |
| Jan 2026 | Vanderbilt Builder Program | 30 additional discovery meetings; ongoing mentorship |
| Jan 2026 | UTC Engineering partnership begins | Prototype refined in the Biomechatronics & Assistive Technology Lab |
| Jan 2026 | NEC Project Healthcare Accelerator | 12-week cohort with legal office hours |
| Feb 2026 | Major technology platform NDA executed | Enterprise hardware partnership; SDK integration underway |
| Spring 2026 | 2nd MOCS Innovate! grant | Only RCOB staff member to receive two consecutive grants |
| Spring 2026 | SkyDeck Berkeley Batch 22 | Application invited to UC Berkeley's premier accelerator |
| Spring 2026 | Life Science TN BioTech cohort | Accepted |
| Spring 2026 | Vanderbilt/SDSU Neurotech Accelerator | Accepted into program |
| Spring 2026 | Major educational assessment publisher conversations | Active partnership discussions |
| Mar 5, 2026 | Non-provisional patent filed | Application No. 19/557,509; patent pending |
| Mar 9-18, 2026 | SXSW 2026 | Live Wear OS demo; investor meetings; non-provisional filed during festival |
| Apr 2, 2026 | $3M Federal Translational Research Program at UTC | Megan's journey is the proof of concept |
| April 2026 | 6 additional provisionals in development | Expanding IP moat across multiple innovation vectors |
| April 2026 | AVVOF framework published | Ambient Voice Volume Observation Framework — proprietary methodology |
| April 2026 | Live app launched for feedback | Wear OS application on commercial smartwatch hardware |
| April 2026 | National Hult Prize competition | 1 of 34 teams competed |
| 2025-2026 | 300+ stakeholder conversations | Cumulative across all programs; validated demand across 4 states |
What Sensory Bridges Does
The Challenge
1 in 31 children in the United States is autistic (CDC MMWR, 2025). Millions more have IEPs under autism, ADHD, and Other Health Impairment classifications.
Voice modulation relies on a self-awareness loop. When that loop works differently, a person may speak louder than intended, not out of defiance, but because the sensory bridge is missing.
The Solution: Brooks Band
Brooks Band is a wearable voice self-regulation platform. A smartwatch application continuously observes the wearer's own voice output via on-device microphone. All audio processing happens on-device — no audio is ever recorded or transmitted.
Who It Helps
Key Differentiators
- Ephemeral on-device processing: No audio recording, no cloud transmission. Privacy-first by architecture, not policy.
- IEP documentation engine: Produces progress monitoring notes, PLAAFP statements, and goal-tracking data.
- Designed with dignity at the core: Discreet haptic cues — no public correction, no visual alerts that mark the wearer.
- Continuous wellness data: Personal progress tracking for the individual and the people who support them.
Intellectual Property Position
- Provisional Patent: US Provisional Application No. 63/767,320 — filed March 5, 2025.
- Non-Provisional Patent: Application No. 19/557,509 — filed March 5, 2026. Status: Patent Pending.
- Additional Provisionals: Six additional provisional applications in development.
- AVVOF: Ambient Voice Volume Observation Framework — proprietary copyrighted methodology.
Freedom-to-operate analysis completed. Core innovation occupies a distinct, non-overlapping claim space from identified prior art.
Strategic Partnerships
Major Consumer Technology Platform (Under NDA)
Enterprise hardware partnership under executed NDA. SDK integration underway with dedicated technical team. This partnership provides commercial-grade wearable hardware for pilot deployment.
Major Educational Assessment Publisher
Active partnership conversations focused on complementary architecture for supporting neurodivergent learners.
Educational & Therapy Partners
Formal and informal partnerships established with occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and therapy centers across Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina. Twelve schools and therapy partners have expressed readiness for pilot deployment.
Why Megan Will Succeed
The milestones above document what Megan has done. This section documents why the same pattern of execution is expected to continue — backed by commercial assessment data, validated personality instruments, and peer-reviewed research on founder success predictors.
CliftonStrengths: Top Five
| Strength | Gallup Domain | How it shows up in Megan's founder work |
|---|---|---|
| Ideation | Strategic Thinking | Generated the original Brooks Band concept from a single observation. Now architects seven patent filings, the AVVOF framework, and a full suite of expansion concepts. |
| Strategic | Strategic Thinking | Maps the path from customer discovery through IP, capital, and market entry. |
| Empathy | Relationship Building | 300+ stakeholder conversations conducted with the kind of listening that generates real product-market fit signal. |
| Arranger | Executing | Orchestrates cross-functional teams into working pipelines. Six accelerators completed without missing a milestone. |
| Individualization | Relationship Building | Reads each collaborator, each user, each mentor as an individual. |
Entrepreneur DNA Assessment: The Architect Profile
On April 21, 2026, Megan completed a commercial Entrepreneur DNA assessment. The result placed her in the "Architect" profile — one of nine founder archetypes identified in the research underlying the instrument.
Top Three Strengths (scored out of 100)
| Trait | Score | What the instrument measures |
|---|---|---|
| Emotional Control | 100 | Resilient and calm under pressure. The single strongest correlate of venture durability in the Entrepreneur DNA instrument. |
| Achievement | 99 | Sets highly ambitious goals. Maps directly to the seventeen-month record: non-provisional patent, six accelerators, enterprise NDAs, research protocol approval. |
| Optimism | 95 | Views problems as opportunities. Foundational to building as a solo, female, first-time, full-time-employed, single-parent founder. |
Self-Aware Calibration Areas
| Trait | Score | Calibration strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Assertiveness | 21 | Addressed by retaining sharp counsel and advisors who negotiate on the company's behalf. |
| Reflectiveness | 18 | Addressed by structured retrospectives after each accelerator cohort and formal mentorship cadences. |
Research-Validated Success Predictors
| Success predictor | Research source | Megan's documented evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Self-efficacy — strongest direct predictor of venture growth | Baum & Locke (2004), Journal of Applied Psychology. | Non-provisional patent filed; enterprise NDA executed; $32,250+ raised across nine sources; research protocol running. |
| Resilience moderating self-efficacy | Ahmed, Ucbasaran, Cacciotti & Williams (2022), Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. | Built across major life transitions, single parenting, full-time employment — without missing an accelerator milestone. |
| Self-efficacy predicts resource acquisition | Maitlo, Ferdoos, Syed & Naqvi (2020), SAGE Open. | Enterprise hardware partnership NDA, board formation, twelve pilot partner sites secured without marketing spend. |
| Self-efficacy predicts patent applications and startup survival | Kessels, Unger & Dutta (2023), Small Business Economics. | Non-provisional Application No. 19/557,509 filed; six additional provisionals in development; seventeen months of continuous operation. |
"What started as a solution for one, became a solution for many."
— Megan Cales, Founder & CEO, Sensory Bridges, LLC
Single Mother · Neurodivergent Founder
The Brooks Band is a general wellness wearable designed to support voice self-regulation and personal awareness. It is not intended for use as a medical device. Patent Pending. © 2026 Sensory Bridges, LLC.