An AI-powered recovery

In 2024 professional footballer Michail Antonio was involved in a serious car accident in his Ferrari. His recovery and subsequent return to football – he signed with Watford last month - was aided by KinematiX, an AI-powered movement analysis platform that uses an everyday smartphone camera to analyse how the body moves. The app was developed by Maahan Mirnezami R’16 with his mother Dr Nellie Zavarei-Mirnezami and recently featured in The Daily Telegraph.

They were already working on other projects with Antonio when he had his accident. Maahan tell us, ‘Seeing an elite athlete make significant progress through his rehabilitation has been a defining milestone in our journey. What made it particularly significant was seeing our technology subsequently validate that progress, giving us a deeper understanding of movement and performance and how we can help people move better and perform at their best.’

Maahan studied Biomedicine at Imperial and went on to Harvard Medical School for a year to study the foundation fundamentals of Medicine. His entrepreneurial drive has led to him develop start-ups across medicine and technology and much of his recent work has focused on the application of artificial intelligence in healthcare and human performance. KinematiX is one of the projects of which he is most proud. He tells us, ‘The aim was to make elements of biomechanical assessment that have traditionally required specialist laboratories, cameras, markers, sensors and other expensive equipment significantly more accessible. The technology can analyse areas such as joint movement, mobility, symmetry and compensatory movement patterns, giving clinicians, physiotherapists, strength and conditioning professionals and athletes objective information that can be followed over time.

Maahan now believes that the use of the app could be extended into care homes to monitor the everyday irregularities in people’s movements and help identify factors that may contribute to falls among older people. He says, ‘I am working towards a broader ecosystem of technologies that use AI to make health information more objective, personalised and accessible, while supporting rather than replacing healthcare professionals.’

Remembering his time at Worth Maahan tell us, ‘Looking back, Worth was an important formative part of my journey. My career has certainly not followed a conventional path, but that has allowed me to bring together medicine, technology and entrepreneurship in ways I could not have anticipated at the time. It’s been particularly exciting to see some of that work now receiving national attention, and I am looking forward to continuing to develop these technologies and seeing where the next stage of the journey takes me.’