Connor Heffler knew the risks of playing football. As a former Cal Poly linebacker, he saw teammates suffer multiple concussions — some so severe they could never play again. But what frustrated him most was how concussions were diagnosed.
“You have to play [football] fearlessly,” Heffler said. “But after seeing friends suffer as many as six concussions and never being able to play again, I realized something had to change.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that up to 3.8 million sports-related concussions occur nationwide each year, with nearly half going unreported. Inspired to change that, Heffler set out to develop a more accurate, data-driven solution to detect concussions.
Heffler’s focus was on repetitive head trauma because, for college-age athletes, these repeated injuries lead to longer recovery times, impact learning capabilities and have a higher risk for mental illness, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Their efforts culminated at Cal Poly with the creation of ODIN, a startup developing a virtual reality headset that tracks eye movements to diagnose concussions in real-time. The headset conducts a series of ocular tasks, asking users to follow moving objects, focus on specific points and respond to visual stimuli.
“A lot of innovation was needed in this space to prevent further damage after injury and to help mitigate successive undetected concussions,” Heffler said.
What started as a senior project quickly gained momentum through Cal Poly’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), a campus resource offering mentorship and funding to student-led startups.
Heffler’s team won $15,000 in funding through the CIE’s Innovation Quest competition, helping the startup advance to the CIE’s Summer Accelerator program. The intensive, 12-week initiative provides funding, coaching and a dedicated workspace at the CIE HotHouse, a startup hub in downtown San Luis Obispo.
For Heffler, the CIE’s support was invaluable.
“The whole experience with the CIE and the HotHouse has been life-changing,” Heffler said. “I could call advisors at almost any hour of the day, and they were always quick to help.”
Now, ODIN continues to develop as a part of the CIE’s Incubator program, a two-year initiative designed to help startups bridge the gap between concept and application.
As ODIN refines its technology, the team is focused on expanding its impact beyond Cal Poly.
The urgency of ODIN’s mission is underscored by the growing awareness of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disorder caused by repeated head injuries.
Josh Gottschalk, a biomedical engineering senior whose senior project was sponsored by ODIN, said the company’s virtual reality headset provides a portable, self-sufficient solution for concussion detection.
“Unlike current methods that rely on subjective assessments, this device offers objective and measurable results,” Gottschalk said.
ODIN Diagnostics is expanding its team in preparation for additional testing throughout 2025. Looking forward, the team is a finalist in the CIE’s annual pitch competition, AngelCon, and will compete in May in hopes of winning $100,000 in funding.
