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July 18, 2023 • 45 mins

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As we continue the conversation in regards to the positive impact art can have on you, let's dive in to what happens to your body when you make art. Listen to Amy Li, founder of Dance4Healing, as she talks about her personal experience with art and it's healing powers and her current NIH study developing an intergenerational telehealth program for minority diabetes patients and their care partners to increase engagement and reduce health disparities. From dance and movement to voice recognition and artificial intelligence, Amy Li has found a way to combine her passion for arts and healing with her background in design and computer technology to create a personal healing art program for healthcare patients.

More information here: https://dance4healing.com/ - join the NIH study here: https://nihstudy.dance4healing.com/

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Oh , welcome, welcome. We're so excited.
Today we have Amy Lee fromDance for Healing. And Amy, if
you could just introduceyourself to our audience, who
you're, and what you're doingin this world.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah. Hi everyone.
I'm Amy Lee, founder and c e oof Dance for Healing. Um, as
started because my owntrajectory of life , um, you
know, recovering from stagefour cancer that personally
benefit a lot from creativearts , um, and, you know,
really a salary, my recoveryand, and surprised my doctors .

(00:34):
So after that, I just left mycushy corporate job , uh, which
is mostly focused on innovationthat bring my technology
innovation background in AIresearch and behavior design to
make healthy habits accessible,supported and fun for patients
like me and elderly like mymom. So here I am , champion
for the arts, and for

Speaker 3 (00:57):
That's awesome. Um, so we like to start every
conversation off with aquestion. And so the question
we're using today as ourjumping off point is what
happens to your body on art? Soin whatever way, whatever that
inspires what, what happens toyour body on art?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah. So I think you ask the right person because
oftentimes , uh, my funny wayof describing myself is , um, I
can't resist music. If you turnit on , I'm gonna start moving
.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
So

Speaker 2 (01:30):
You definitely ask the right person for that
question. Um, I think alright ,has an innate ability to reach
human soul, you know,regardless whether it's, you
know, writing, poetry,painting, drawing, or music,
you know, or dance , right?
Like, you know, I joke aroundand say , you can walk around
and like reading your phone,right? But you can't dance

(01:51):
trying to do your phone. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
See, that's gross .

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah. Um , so yeah, all jokes says aside , I think
r has a very unique way to ,uh, to reach human in a much,
much deeper way for our, youknow, back auto old times of
ancient humanity up until now.
Yeah. And you guys probablynoticed , like, you know, the
Italians started to, you know,singing outside their windows
and then That's right, right.

(02:18):
And then yeah, all dance on thepatio with their neighbors, you
know, when the pandemichappened , you know, so easy .
See , when, when our humanitiesthreaten , we naturally go back
to art. Yeah .

Speaker 1 (02:30):
I'm interested, can you go back to, so you love
music and you love dancing, buthow did you know that would
like, heal you? How did thatkinda switch turn on for you?

Speaker 2 (02:39):
So, to be honest, at the time I wasn't fully
realizing it. I just utilizeit. I mean, honestly , um, my
mom tell a fun story that whenI was maybe four or five , uh,
that she took me to visit mygrandma in the, you know, old
Chinese countryside, the courtYeah . Houses. And so she went

(03:01):
to, took a nap , which istypical like the Chinese Cs
that , um, and I was a littlekid, so I couldn't, I couldn't
sleep obviously. So I saw agroup of adults were doing Cho
in the auto cell Korea . Sowent up to them, introduced
myself, started dancing andsinging for them. Mm . Wow . It
was very in innate in my body.
Right. And so when my mom wokeup, she thought it was a proper

(03:24):
term to introduce myself toeveryone, and everybody just
looked at me and start laughingsay , oh yeah, we already
didn't know her . .
Right . Yeah. And you know, thefunny thing is , um, despite of
that , uh, in Chinese culture,we normally don't see r as like
a , a living choice or careeroption, right? Hmm . It's like,

(03:49):
it's, you know, cuz Chineseculture does very , you know,
value heavily on stability,right? So r is like a side
hobby . And so I technicallywon her public speech contest
when I was 12 mm-hmm .
. And so this islike sound in China, very male
dominant. And so when theteacher identified a girl that

(04:09):
is not that shy that she couldput on stage , they , they put
me a lot on stage . So I wasdancing, singing, you know, do
kind , all kinds of stuff. AndI wasnt near sighted , so I
couldn't see on the stage. So Iwas like a little kid going up
there, reading apoetry, dancing , singing,
doing whatever the teacherasked me to do. And, and then,
you know , it certainly builtup a lot of my confidence,

(04:30):
right? But when I was reachinglike, you know , um, more like
a senior high school about toprepare for my college interest
exam, this is like a mostimportant , um, exam that a
student will take to determinepretty much like life
trajectory, what are you gonnaget into a good college or not.
And it's in the most intensethree days in the hottest

(04:54):
summer. Wow . You know, that you have to like do this
concentrate six subject test .
Right. Oh my . And so, right.
And so because of that, youknow, as soon as like I get to
maybe even like the two yearsbefore that final exam, my
parents was like, Uhuh , nomore dancing, no more singing,
nothing, focus on school.

(05:16):
Mm-hmm. , noperformance, nothing. Right.
Um, and you know, so to mysurprise , um, I really kind of
left sort of my, I don't evenknow if it was a dream or just
like my sort of childhoodinnate love for arts , um, for
a long time until I came to theus . Uh, because I,

(05:39):
unfortunately during that examI had a heat like, what do you
call it? Heat stroke orsomething like whatever you
call it, like, you know mm-hmm.
. Uh , so I washospitalized and I was on IV
and I still go back tothe test . So I didn't score as
high as my normal score. Why ?
So I went to two year collegein China and I came to the US

(06:00):
and so because of immigration ,uh, to the us I actually went
back to study graphic design,which is something that relate
more to kind of what I love todo. Instead of, like in China,
I'll study taxation management,which is very , very

(06:21):
mm-hmm . very ,very far away from the arts.
Right. But my dad was superhappy because , you know, you
get a government job, you know,like work for like the I r s ,
um, and is well paid as highlyrespected. Right. Um, but that
wasn't really what my heart iscalling for. Right. And so, you
know, one thing I'd reallyappreciate coming to the us you
know, is that I do have areally good college counselor.

(06:44):
I started in community collegeand mm-hmm .
while I was working, sellingpot in pan , uh, to
supermarkets, mostly Asiansupermarket mm-hmm .
to pay for mycollege tuition to really get
my, you know, life started inthe us . Um, and luckily my
counselor , uh, when I toldhim, Hey, my friend told me

(07:04):
that there's this major I candraw on a computer, what is
that like? I like to do that.
And then he was like, oh, youyou mean graphic design? That's
actually not a computer degree.
That's a , that's a fine artdegree. And then I got scared.
I was like, oh , uh, I don'tthink I have any art training.
I literally do not believe Ihave many art training despite

(07:25):
the fact I've been doodlingsince I was a young child. I
was fascinating with likeancient Chinese woman's
hairstyle mm-hmm . All kinds ofjewelry on top of their hair.
Mm-hmm . . Um,and so that was my classic, you
know, like ing across like, youknow, probably the , uh, junior
high school. Um, and then I hada friend who's also really into

(07:48):
ding . So we will compare like,you know, her little Asian
women, you know, portraitsversus May and seafood does
better and kinda inspire eachother. Um, so I did that. And
then , uh, one time when I wasin a political science class, I
was doodling obviously in myteacher, noticed that I wasn't
paying attention to the class .

(08:09):
So he came by and he realized,oh. Like my , my book,
my political science book wasthrow little little figures of
these Asian fe with fancyhairs. So guess what? I was
polished by, you know, beingcalled to stand in front of the
blackboard and it's the circlein front of the class as a

(08:29):
punishment that, that, youknow, that I wasn't , uh, I
wasn't doing a student supposedto do.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
Right. So one , so no wonder you were afraid of a
little bit afraid of pursuingart. Right. You didn't really
get a ton of messaging that itwas

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Thing , you know ?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right.
Yeah. And I think as a kid, you, you come on me , you can't
tell a kid not to draw on the ,on a , I don't know , on the
wall, on the bathroom. Right .
As a king , you don't reallythink about that. You're just
like, oh, there's a paper. LikeI'm just gonna start doodling.
So that's kinda what I did.
Right. Right. Now, now Iprobably would not draw a book,
but it's a child , Ididn't really care. Right. Um,

(09:08):
and then the other thing alsois really interesting that did
not build out any of myconfidence either. What's
interesting is I actually wasone of the main person who did
all the illustrations and theirpaper design for our , um,
classroom paper mm-hmm .
, uh, thatpublish in the back of our ,

(09:30):
you know, so in, I don't knowhow it is in here. So in
Chinese classroom used to belike blackboard white charts .
Mm-hmm. . So inthe fan , it's the teacher's
teaching in the back , it's astudent published like a news
newsletter mm-hmm .
or whatever, likea paper, whatever you call it.
Um , usually , um, I think it'susually every week. And I was

(09:52):
the main person who did thatfor six years in high school.
Wow . And then there's acompetition between different
classrooms. Cuz in China ourclassroom is consistent, always
that same room. And then thesame students go there for
three years and then, you know,then that's junior high and
then three years for the highschool. Right. Um , .

(10:13):
So we won all kinds ofcompetition. We got invited to
publish this , the all theschool's newspaper, which is
like, you know, the main , um,name main like, what do you
call it ? Driveway into theschool. There's this giant
school newspaper on the wall.
Right . That we get invited tobe published because we won the

(10:33):
other competition. Right. Wow.
I did that too. But despite allof that, because I was always
doing it myself, I mean , tooka few classes, but none of
those , uh, experience, I wasguided by like official
training or anything. Right .
And so when my teacher here ,um, the college counselor told
me, oh, that's a final degree.

(10:54):
And I would say , oh , I don't,I don't have any art training.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
Mm-hmm . Right .
Even though it had beenintegrated in your entire life.
Mm-hmm . Right . That's sointer interesting that you had
that perspective. Right . Ok .
So then if you, so did you gofor the graphic design?

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, I did. Ok .
And so luckily he was so good,he told me, well, so I know you
not feel confident. Um, and thegood news is a lot of these art
classes could be like collegecredit as a general credit. So
you could go take it and thenit will apply as your college
credit. If you don't like it.

(11:35):
You don't have to go to graphicdesign. You know, these still
apply as your general credit.
If you like it, then you canapply for graphic design. And
then he told me about thisprogram in Cal State Long
Beach, you know, which is likeone of their top graphic design
program in the country. But Ididn't realize it was so hard
to get in . So , so anyway,and, and I think one thing also

(11:57):
really good is , um, they , Raycome in our career center,
recommend that we do , uh,career interviews. So we
interview , uh, you know, someof the other graphic designers,
like really kind of learn abouttheir career. I actually
recently was organizing, youknow, moving back to la
organizing my college, youknow, all like o stuff , right?

(12:18):
Mm-hmm. cameacross one of their , uh, lady
that we interview , thatshe is a graphic designer,
actually contacting her onLinkedIn. Hey , do you remember
me ? Wow. Yeah. It was , it wasreally interesting. So anyway,
that was helpful. And then Ialso drove down all the way to
Cal State long way to visit aschool, talked to the professor

(12:40):
to like, kind of really learnabout what , what it takes to
be major in that. Right. Um,and then I took bunch of like,
fine art classes, like drawing,painting, 2D design, 3D design,
light drawing, you know, whichI was very shy to like mm-hmm .
, you know, asChinese, we don't see people
naked. Normally go to aclass. And , but I , I don't

(13:03):
even think , like throughoutthe whole class I speak much
because I was shocked. Like Ijust keep

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Drawing .
Yeah , yeah .

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah. And it was really interesting. It's like a
lot of models, they , they doit because they also artist
themselves, right? Yeah . Soduring the boy , the towel ,
when they walk around, theywould come to look at our
drawing and , and they werelike, you know , have like a
little casual conversation withus. And I was always like,
mm-hmm. . Yeah, .

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah. I think I feel like every art , every art
student has had thatexperience. For sure. For

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Sure. Great . Yeah.
So it's really interesting.
Yeah . So anyway , uh, the goodnews is , um, throughout all my
art classes, I was one of thetop student Mm . Mm-hmm.
. So that givesme a lot of validation. Yeah.
So that, that gives me a lot ofconfidence to like actually
really apply for, for the superdifficult to get in program and

(14:00):
finally got in. Um, yeah. And ,and that set up my foundation
for design. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah. Okay . I love it . I mean, it seems like art
is a force in your life. Imean, I think as artists , art
is a force. It's like a , aforce of nature, and it just
couldn't go away. Although youwere saying that your culture
was like, no , but yeah. Just such a big force of
nature that you, you, you hadto do it. And do you feel like,

(14:27):
this is a personal questionabout your own cancer. Yeah .
Do you feel like that squashingof your art, which was
squashed, led to getting sick,possibly and not expressing
yourself on a full level?

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Um, I'm, I don't think it was that mm-hmm .
, I think it wasmore the , um, the stress, the
cho stress that I have mm-hmm .
Pushing life stress mm-hmm .
. Um, becausetechnically, even though I
wasn't doing traditional art, Iwas , um, I started as art
director at Yahoo, then I was ,uh, our user experience

(15:03):
director in large designagencies. Um, and then I was a
senior UX director. But my lastjob, my boss is one of the most
abusive boss ever.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah . That you

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Don't wanna work with . Yeah. I mean, I,
I sort of become like

Speaker 3 (15:18):
A stresses .

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
I mean, it's interesting, right? Mm-hmm .
, because youstill had an , you still had an
art influenced job. Yeah . Andthey didn't, they didn't
necessarily abide by, I guessmy viewpoint of art. I mean,
art to me is a , is a tool forgetting all of that stress out

(15:41):
of you. Mm-hmm . . Yeah . And then to , to see
that there are art , art jobsout there that are actually
causing stress . Stress isreally, it's really hard to
Fair enough . I mean, that'show, like, honestly, when you
mentioned the figure drawingclass, right? Yeah . That was
my experience in art school wasmm-hmm . , that
it was stressful. And I just, Ifelt so removed from that

(16:05):
process because I had neverfelt that way about art. Art
was never that for me, art hadalways been this tool for
self-expression and to havethis conversation with myself
and to heal those wounds that Ididn't even understand at the
time. And so I feel like wehave such an interesting
conversation, you know, like,like , uh, just a , like, we're

(16:28):
not really connecting all thedots necessarily in the whole
world in terms of art. Yeah .
Does that make sense to you?

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
And this is why I think youwrite on the spot in a sense
that when I got sick, and thisis like, you know, when I was
diagnosed with stage fourcancer, obviously it's like
literally at the bottom oflife, right? Yeah . Like your
life, like, you know, I wrotethis piece about Cancer Box ,
and I was like, the clock isticking like Salo Dali , um, on

(16:59):
the wall. Mm-hmm .
, literally, it'slike tripping, right? Yeah .
There's no sense of time . It'slike every day you just like,
go to the hospital, go do thetreatment, come back, make sure
you still have the energy toeither sometimes sit or, or
light down. Right. And then,you know, it's one day it'll
time . Yeah . And so what'sinteresting is when I didn't

(17:25):
draw for maybe like 12 yearsuntil I got sick, like, you
know, cuz when I was workingmostly in technology, we do
digital, you know, right? It's computer. Right?
Like, I haven't even touched,you know, brushes for a while .
So I pick up my, up my artbrushes after 12 years. Mm . I
started writing poetry, whichis, I'm committed to getting my

(17:46):
book published. . Okay. Yeah. Right. I love it. You
know, the funny thing is like ,when I was young, I wrote like
a little Chinese poetry and Ishow it to my older sister and
then she looked it , I thoughtit was really good, like, in my
mind, in my whatever the kid'smind, right ? It was like
something about hungry for this, this gray apple garden in

(18:09):
your dreams or something likethat. Um, and then she was
like, well, maybe you wantedwrite when you have more life
experience, . So, so Ihad a poem , uh, called Stage
four , uh, stage. Um , andactually recently , um, I just
got accepted into HarvardHarvard's , uh, effective
writing program. And that wasthe writing sample that

(18:30):
required to submit. And Ichoose to submit that one
because it, it encapsulate my,the spirit of my book really
well, cuz I'm compared thestage of life to the stage of
performing art to the stage ofcancer. Mm . Um , yeah . So
it's like very sort ofmethodological, right? Like,
you know, sort of kind oflooking at different areas in
life, right? Um, and , um, soback to when I was sick, you

(18:55):
know, and, and so to your keypoint, right? Like, you know,
when it bounce , when it backto just very sort of human
survival instinct mm-hmm .
, we go back toart, just like, you know, the
Italian dance. The same thingis when humanity is threatened.
When my living, my life, lifeof death, it's being

(19:15):
threatened. I go back to myinnate desire for arts . Um, I
pick up my airbuses after 12years. I listen to music when
I'm bedridden, when I'm inchemo, when I'm nervous, right?
Mm-hmm . , uh, Iappreciate even, like when I
have to go into surgery, theyhave like a little bit of
music. They have like a littlebit of arts on the seating

(19:36):
mm-hmm. to kindacalm their patient down. Right.
Um, and then the only exerciseprogram that I was allowed to
attend, because my immunesystem is severely compromised,
right. It was at the cancercenter and it happened to be a
music and dance program. So ,so , uh, so that's why like ,
you know , uh, it , it justkinda like, you know, it's been

(20:00):
like distant from me for solong. All a sudden every single
modality came back to supportme . Right . You know? Um, and
part of the challenges that I'drealized , even though I , when
the good day, I can make it tothe cancer center and attend
that class, but on the daysthat I couldn't make it, you

(20:21):
know, I was too sick to go ordon't have a volunteer driver,
then I have no activity forseveral weeks. Right. And this
is why inspired me to buildthis technology platform that
allow people to have access tomusic, dance and art when they
stuck at home, you know, for apatient like me or elderly like
my mom. Right. So when I, toanswer your question, like do I

(20:43):
know, how do I know that asalary might recovery at the
time , in the midst of that, Ihave no clue . Mm-hmm .
, I was justdoing well . My heart mm-hmm .
Is desire four . Right. Butlooking back, I realized that
make a huge difference for me.
Um, and specifically ,uh, one year after I finished

(21:05):
my cancer treatment , um, I wasat our school's , uh, pool
party. And so I, I attendedthis , uh, graduate study
program at Singway d Universityat nasa . And halfway through
that program I was diagnosedwith stage four cancer. Right.
So you can see all myclassmates and faculty were
really worried about me mm-hmm. . And so at

(21:26):
that pool party, a year afterour uh, leadership director
came up to me and he said, Amy,I'm so happy to see you here
because when I went to Stanfordto see you in the hospital, I
was so worried about you. Mm .
And I was like, came toStanford to see me. Oh , I
didn't know. Cause I was sosick. I was Right . You know,

(21:48):
passed out because I had acomplication from my feeding to
surgery. Mm-hmm . And thedoctor left too much air in my
DIA frame and was so painful.
So, you know, they dischargedme and, but you know, their
other hospital where I went toget my radiation treatment,
they looked at me, they're justlike, she does not look right.
Like, you gotta send her backto their hospital. Cause our

(22:10):
other faculty was supportingme. Right. And so I ended up,
was in a hospital for like ,uh, a whole week. Um , they
were waiting to see if the airwill kind of fo it out, but it
doesn't work because it's inthe diaphragm. So eventually
they had to drill another holeto suck out all the air in my
diaphragm . Um, and thenhalfway through that, that

(22:31):
process, this is their , ourleadership director visited me,
but I was so sick , I have noclue that he was actually
there. Oh , wow . And causewhat happened is the doctor
who's care for me told him hewas worried if I can make it
due the end of the year, andthat was five months uhhuh . So

(22:53):
this was July, 2012 mm-hmm.
mm-hmm .
. So to end theyear that was five months. Wow
. You see , 10 years later, I'mstill here telling you guys the
story and still singing anddancing. Right. So, so do I
know that actually a Saturday ?
Well, I dunno for sure. Butthere is evidence the doctors
worry if I could even make itto five months. And here I am.

(23:16):
Right. I , I , I recover. Youknow , and the funny thing is
that each time when I go backto the doctor, they'll be like,
you're looking good. , they don't tell you
until like five years later.
Congratulations. You know,because with cancer sometimes
you'll never know what's gonnacome out . Right , right,
right. So , yeah . Yeah. So I'm, I'm definitely a living

(23:38):
evidence of how arts can reallycontribute to human health.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay . So tell tellus about ,

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Um, dance for healing a little bit. And you,
you talked about developingtechnology to help people when
they're on their own when theycan't leave the home. So how
does that work?

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah. So , um, do I , after Yahoo , uh, I was an
audio director at Yahoo. Uh,then I was recruited by at t
inter r and d. Um, and we werelike a little bit sort of like
a small lab on a giantshoulder, the large at and t
labs, right? Mm-hmm.

(24:16):
. And so we doall kinds of technology
experiments , um, you know, ai,you know, all kinds of stuff
like voice recognition and allof that. Um, my first iPhone
app was actually featured NewYork Times , guess what it's
called? . It saw a basichuman knee and it was on St .
Patrick's Day. Can you guysguess ?

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Hmm . What ?

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Basic human saw . A basic human , uh, what do
people do on St . Patrick's Day?

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Celebrate , um, ,

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Do you celebrate drink? I'm kidding. Yeah,
you're right . You on the topic. So what do people do after
they drink?

Speaker 3 (24:51):
What do they they, well, I feel like they drink
and they chant and they dancearound and they go a parade .

Speaker 2 (24:58):
And what's the basic human need ? After they drink ,

Speaker 3 (25:02):
They go to the bathroom. . Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
So, so the app is actually gonna have to pee,
literally have to pee withoutan ee . Anyway, so it was
literally an experiment app .
Cuz technically this is like2009, right? Um, when a lot
of.com crash, a lot of businessclosed mm-hmm . ,
you know, and so at t boughtyellow pages.com. And so we

(25:28):
were trying to figure out whichcategory. Local search has a
lot of pool. And so we have, werestaurant data, we have hotel
data, we have gas station. Um ,and we had this fun idea like,
oh, nobody has bathroom data.
We do have some , wehave it . Right ? And so we
thought, okay , maybe it'd befun to build this app could
have to pee , like looking forbathrooms, right?

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yes . Yes . No , I mean, seriously. Yeah .

Speaker 2 (25:53):
And then thanks for the graphic design school I
went to, which is literally oneof the top eight four coming in
the country. I, I designed thislogo under , uh, loading screen
of the app. Mm-hmm.
is I I modifiedthe traditional bathroom sign
into like a lake class fi . So basically they

(26:15):
were doing like a little sortof PPP dance, you know, like
when people get nervous

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Like dance .

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Anyway . Yeah. It was hilarious. So anyway , um,
so our app without muchpromotion, it got picked up
first by NBC's Chicago. It, itwent on to New York Times being
featured as app of the week.
Uh, technically they featuretwo bathroom search app, but
they use my graphic .

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah ,

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Exactly. And so the other funny part is , uh, we
had like a , um, this sort ofurgency detector because, you
know, this is like at thebeginning of Apple iPhone , uh,
app design, right? Like, youknow, when Apple actually open
up , uh, application design fordevelopers, right? And so, so
there's a function where youcould bill , uh, where you

(27:02):
shake the phone in doingsomething mm-hmm .
. And so what wedid is when you shake the
phone, you have to pee reallybad. We'll find you in the
closest bathroom funny. Anyway , anyway , and then we
call it urgency detector. Soanyway , so New York Times
suddenly had a good fun , uh,you know, capture of that.

(27:26):
Like, oh, here , I guess whatit's even urgency detector. You
orange , just keepshaking your phone . So anyway
, uh, so, so yeah, so itstarted by New York Times and
then it , it got picked up byother, you know, major media.
And then , um, and then like,you know , um, there's like
some article on gizmoto. It'slike , um, have to , people

(27:47):
will say your underpants. Mm-hmm . Uh , and then
, and then like the funniestbackstory is this is supposed
to be an experiment app.
Mm-hmm. , right?
So initially our at t you r andd does not have an official
developer's title, you know, inour app store, right? Mm-hmm.

(28:09):
, like not thedeveloper name , it wasn't
official at t, but because weare getting so much media app ,
um, and then we started puttingthe name at t inter interactive
r d , you know, on theapp. And so few weeks later,
this article Audible came outsaying, at t wanna help you pee
uhhuh . Anyway , sothat's auto fun story . So that

(28:31):
just give you a little bit, youknow, sort of , um, idea about,
you know, how we use a lot ofexperimental technologies and
ai. And so the quick follow upafter that is we use the
traffic to long take a wholesuite of , have two apps , so
like, have to eat, have todrink. Mm-hmm .
have to snack, you know, allthese different type of stores,
right? Mm-hmm. ,um, and apparently have to e is

(28:54):
everybody love to eat. Mm-hmm .
And so it surpassed all thetraffics all sudden . And so
our , um, researcher scientistsin AI was able to use AI model
to train , uh, the app to allautomatically review the
restaurants based on the datathat we pull from like other ,
um, you know, user feedbacksor, you know, review data. So

(29:17):
we could rate a restaurantbased on five different
aspects, like for example, theatmosphere, the , um mm-hmm .
, you know,whatever the quality of food
Right? Know . Yeah . And thenwe also use that experiment to
discover a lot of discrepancybecause we have the data
scientists occasionally go andcheck it. And I design an
interface where there's aself-report data. Like you

(29:39):
could say, you know, the ratingof the, the restaurant by
thumbs up , thumbs down, andyou know, whatever. Right? But
our machine learning is, is, ispull all these data from the
prior reviews. So if weidentified as a discrepancy
between the cell report data,which is you tap , you know,
right . A little button ,right. Versus the machine

(29:59):
learning data. So for example,you could say the restaurant,
the atmosphere is okay, but Idon't know why the machine
review says it is really goodmm-hmm. . And so
our data scientist can go inand pool and say, oh , um,
actually somebody have a commonlike , oh, today's such a
beautiful day. My girlfriendsmells so good. Mm-hmm.
, you know , Ilove her flower dress or

(30:19):
whatever that , that not thathas anything to do with the
restaurant atmosphere, but amachine will pull those
keywords and categorize it as ahigh quality atmosphere and
stuff. Right? So we use thatexperiment to like really done
a lot intricacy about how do I,as a designer to utilize my
skill to help, you know,improve the AI algorithms. And

(30:43):
you know, like , uh, and thenthere's also a lot of behavior
design , like, you know, kindof learning from not just like
the urgency of using thebathroom pal , also different
behavior, how user do thesearch, right? Because we also
have another app , um, forspeak for It , where you don't
really speak in on your app,and this is back in 2009 mm-hmm
. Where there's barely anyvoice talking apps, right?

(31:05):
Mm-hmm . But you could havepull up your phone and say,
find me the nearest , uh, gasstation. You know, like, you
know, and then we work withspeech recognition , uh, you
know, scientists in the at tlab to like literally , um, you
know, figuring out what aredifferent scenario and user
behavior when they search forthings, right? So a lot of
these, my background now isactually being adapted and

(31:27):
implemented into our AI whojust received allowance , um,
you know, from , uh, U S P T O.
And I actually was invited tospeak , uh, at USPTO o's , um,
Asian-American , um, nativeHawaiian Pacific Islander
Heritage Month. Mm-hmm . And asa keynote speaker, right? Yeah.
So I wrote a fairly emotional ,um, LinkedIn post because my

(31:52):
dad is a geo mathematicianmm-hmm . . Um ,
and so part of the reason Igrew up, like, you know, having
this education that heavilyfocused on STEM is because of
my father. Right. And my, mymom is a teacher,
unfortunately, my dad passedaway from lung cancer. Mm .
Right ? And so, so, so like,you know, when U S P T O

(32:13):
introduced me as an inventor,you know, it just feels so
good. Like, oh, my dad must beproud of me. Right ? That's
awesome . having hisyoungest daughter being called
as an inventor, right? Yeah .
So our , um, you know, back todance for heating , our AI is
patented. Um , and our goal isreally to make sure people have

(32:35):
different preference, differenthealth conditions, different,
you know, emotion chef ,different body energy, like you
all use different, you know,variety of assess ,
accessibility, mobility needsmm-hmm. mm-hmm.
, they've beenmet through our technology so
we could personalize music anddance and art catered to
individuals needs. And if youlook at the industry, majority

(32:59):
of the fitness program,unfortunately, they dec decide
for fit people, right. . Right . Really , they're
targeting people withdifferent, you know,
accessibility or mobilityneeds. Right. Um , yeah . The
only one out there may be likept, but you know, I myself was
guilty of like not really doingPT myself. Right? Yeah . Right

(33:21):
. And I'm not alone. Like, youknow, when I was , uh, part of
their Stanford , uh, design fordance class where, you know ,
uh, the conference organizerinvited the , one of the top
executive in Kaiser I know. Andhe was pretty excited, you
know, like when we discussed das like a healing modality and
one of the most effective wayof change behavior mm-hmm .

(33:41):
. Cause he wasalso saying like, yeah, you
know, I have all these PTexercise prescribed to me, and
guess how many times I did? Andwe were trying to guess. And he
goes like, zero, zero.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah . No, for sure.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Yeah . Right. Yeah.
So, you know, and so part of it, our mission is really making
healthy habits accessible,supported, and fun in reaching
the right people, allabilities, age, race, and
gender. Yeah . That's make adifference. Awesome . Yeah .

Speaker 1 (34:10):
Yeah . So dance for healing is a movement. And then
how do people get ahold of you?
Like is it through the hospitalsystem or through, how does,
how does that happen?

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah, so our long-term mission is really ,
um, maximize the opportunityfor all the beneficiaries as a
patient. I recognize thatasking patient to pay is not an
ideal , uh, you know , um, sortof long-term sustainable way.
And so our long-term goal is tolike say government

(34:43):
procurement, value-based care ,uh, insurance reimbursement.
Mm-hmm . mm-hmm .
. And as youprobably understand, healthcare
is moving very slowly, right?
Yes. So, so that is still inthe work. And we definitely got
introduced to , uh, va . Youknow, I had a mentor who
actually used to be the , uh,former president of a r p,

(35:05):
who's been incrediblysupportive, introduced me to
bunch of people. Mm-hmm . Um,and then , um, we also get
quite a bit of traction. Likenow we got funded by N nih ,
um, recruiting minoritydiabetic. And so this will ver
verify the efficacy and help usmove , do this , you know,
validation of getting insurancereimbursed about based care.

(35:27):
Um, at the same time, you know,we also targeting are easier to
adapt, you know , the corporatewellness programs. Um, and
during covid we also started acommunity health program. Um,
and so we have like 375 peoplesigned up. The only challenge
is , is this kind of programwithout funding support, it's

(35:48):
difficult for us to keep itlong term sustainable. Right.
Right . And so, yeah , myimmediate urgency at the moment
is to fulfill our recruitmentneeds for the N I Hs study. And
so this is funded by nationalinsured Minority Health and
Health disparity , uh, and weare recruiting minority

(36:10):
diabetics. The caregiver, thecaregiver must be living in the
same household with thembecause for, you know, for
prevention concerns and safety,this is a hundred percent
online study , uh, that we needto ensure the safety protocol
is set up to protect patientswhen they do it at home. Um,
and then we were match them toan intergenerational buddy ,

(36:35):
uh, that is compatible to thembased on, you know, their
initial survey for theirpuffins and, you know, whatever
their needs . Right. Um, andthen , um, from that, they
would receive a fitness watchbecause we are gonna track ,
uh, their activities , um, andthey will also receive an
orange scale. Um , the scalewill help them track their B m

(36:57):
i their weight. Mm-hmm . Uh ,you know, you probably know
diabetes patient , they , youconstantly monitor their weight
and mm-hmm. ,they also, but sugar levels,
right ? Mm-hmm. .
Um , and then , uh, they get toattend our AWE program once we
updated the platform based onthe preference for the initial

(37:17):
group interviews . Um, andwe'll gather those feedback and
update the platform . And thenwe'll launch this, our
signature a we mind movementprogram, . Uh , so this
is a program that achieve highsuccess , uh, when I first
started at the Stanford CancerProgram, that we actually got
net promoter score in 91 Wow.

(37:38):
Compared to Healthcare 24 . Yeah .

Speaker 3 (37:40):
Wow. That's incredible.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah. And we also track like , uh, anxiety,
depression reductions , um, youknow , uh, body energy level
improvement. Mm-hmm .
pain reduction,majority of the people reported
from zero to four. Uh, theyreport either through or four ,
so that means 80 to 100%improvement. That just really
absolutely encouraging, youknow, it makes me happy that to

(38:04):
see so much benefit theoutpatient received , um, and
things for that , uh, initialpilot data we were able to
apply for N NIH funding. Andthen we , and then how , go
ahead. You a , you have aquestion ask

Speaker 3 (38:18):
How many, how many people are you hoping to get
into this current n NIH study?
So

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Technically the , not that many, but
unfortunately, I realizebecause we targeting minorities
, um, it's actually harder ,uh, than just, you know,
general population to recouppatients. Mm-hmm .
. And we doencounter some slowness of
recruitment partners that arelarge Healthcare Institute that
moving very, very slowly mm-hmm. , um, so

(38:45):
technically it's 30participants. Um , okay . Yeah.
That , um, with 10 patients ,10 caregiver , um, and then 10
intergenerational buddy . Soit's like 20 households, 30
participants total. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
Mm-hmm . Okay . And so the, the, it feels to me
like you're combining, you'relike, it's like you .
Mm-hmm . Right ? Cause you havea , you have your like innate ,
uh, like you, you talked aboutyour innate drive towards
movement and art and , but thenyou have the , um, the STEM
side, right? The Yeah .

(39:23):
Computer, the ai. And it's likeyou've combined it , um, in a
way that is accessible yourhope. Right. Um, and you're,
you're almost, you're at thepoint where you're almost
trying to prove the proof is inthe pudding. Mm-hmm.
, you're at thatpoint where you're like, you
know, I mean, let's get thisstraight. Like Lisa and I talk

(39:44):
about this all the time. Weknow, we already know Yeah.
That our heals people. Right.
But it's great that you'regoing to that research side of
it cuz the more research andscience we can have that
basically proves what we almowe already know. Um, sounds
awesome. So , um, I , you know,we'll put all your information

(40:04):
so people can reach out to youto be in this study study .
That would be excellent.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah. And , and all this is really easy, you know,
thanks to my designcommunication background,
, it's literally just,and I just studied that dance
for heating.com. Um, justremember Dance for Heating is
the number four , not f o r .
Yeah. So it has like a videoabout the program mm-hmm .
a little bitinformation about , uh, you

(40:30):
know, like what are we focusedon , um, and then what are they
gonna get from the program?
It's, I would say on averagethere were patient would get
about , um, an individual goget $750 value. Um, you know ,
with the free for our program,they also get the finished
watch and orange scale. Um,they also get like a little,
you know, gift card at the end,$25. So all adds up about 750.

(40:55):
Um, and then if it's eachhousehold, they only get one
orange scale because they canshare the same scale. Right. On
average, they , that's probablymaybe slide less than 750. Um ,
but in general , um, you know,each house will probably get, I
lost the actual data, but it'ssomewhere about 1300 to 1500 ,

(41:16):
and then each individual willget like maybe seven 50 if it's
not in the same house . Yeah.
Mm-hmm .

Speaker 3 (41:22):
, that's powerful.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
I mean, what you're doing is the now, but also the
future. I mean, as we Yeah .
Know, our populations get olderand older, we're not gonna be,
you know, out

Speaker 3 (41:31):
There.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
So. Yeah, absolutely. And I think you
definitely own the veryimportant key point is , um,
part of the reason what I do ismy mom is getting older, right.
Um, she's 82, but according toher own Chinese , um, way of
calculating age mm-hmm . Age,you know, she thinks she's 84
because Chinese calculate the10 months in your stomach as

(41:55):
your age too . Right. Um, and,you know, I moved back to LA
during Covid originally justlike, okay, I get to spend some
time with my family, but I'mstill here because I realized
my mom really needs care.
Right. And so I pretty much,the, the biggest thing that I'm
proud of is, during Covid , Iwas able to spend time with my

(42:16):
mom. I changed her entire careto a complete different medical
system, change her medicine andeverything. Right. You know,
and so people like me orelderly like my mom, you know,
we really need accessible, youknow, engaging platform that
easy to access, right? Mm-hmm .
. So our app, youknow, thanks for my design

(42:37):
background and user experience.
Everybody looked at it sosimple, just push a few button
. Yeah .

Speaker 3 (42:44):
I mean that , I think that's great. I think ,
uh, you know, I, I do thinkthat focusing on our health,
right? Yeah . It can bephysical, mental, emotional.
Yes . Yeah . The moreuser-friendly we can make it.
Yes. Mm-hmm . Uh , the moreaccessible we can make it, the
the better for all of us.
Right. As we know you make theindividual better , you make
the world better. Mm-hmm . So ,I , I appreciate what you're

(43:07):
doing.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah. So the, the exciting news is , uh, with the
N ni one, so we build their biotracking integration in a ly
sensitive ai right? Um, ouraudit proposal currently
pending is actually buildingAlexa. So it mentioned an
elderly could say, Alexa, lockme into dance for healing. Uh,
and then, you know, like ourapp do, Alexa can ask them do

(43:32):
voice, how do you feel rightnow? And I already share , part
of my project , um, in at t isactually voice recognition. So
I'm kind of going back to atechnology I'm already familiar
with mm-hmm . .
So that's exciting. Um, andthen the other one that we
currently got funded, a tinylittle one is actually from a
Chinese community healthassociation that we are

(43:56):
building a languageintegration. Mm-hmm .
, uh, for peoplelike my mom, we English to
Chinese translation.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Oh yeah .

Speaker 2 (44:03):
So the video, yeah.
They , cause you know, music,dancing , art had no border,
right? Yeah . Mm-hmm . So mymom could still watch a little
video and try to imitate amoment , but it will be helpful
if the instructor say somethingmm-hmm . that she
could either read or hear it,right? Mm-hmm. .
And so we recently just do likea little , uh, prototype mm-hmm

(44:25):
. Of a one audience video withlike, you know, screen cap ,
you know, like transcription.
And I show it to my mom i'slike , Hey mom, what do you
think? You know, like , I waslike , oh yeah, good. You know
, now I can understand whatyou're saying, . That's
all right . Yeah. So see that'sanother , another thing about
accessibility, right? Mm-hmm .
like , you know,cause in this country,
unfortunately, minority,especially those with language

(44:48):
barrier immigrants Right? Theyalso suffer from more severe
health disparities. That'sright. And so our next , um,
expansion, once we accomplishthe Chinese one, we actually
targeting Spanish. So English,Spanish, and you probably
already know Spanish love todance, right? . Yeah,

(45:10):
yeah , yeah , yeah. Music,dance and art is so rich in the
culture. Right. You know , sothat would be our's . Expansion
to that. Yeah .

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Wonderful. Well , thank you so much for joining
us today. It was great to hear, uh, some of your story and
see how you're , I mean, it, itmakes sense why you are where
you are . And thank you forwhat you do, .

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Yeah . Thank you.
Thank you. Yeah. And I love the, your interview too, and thank
you so much for yourcommitment, you know , to bring
arts and awareness, you know,to all the people who listen to
the podcast and who be all overthe world . And I definitely
love , I love it . Enjoy yourwork , .

Speaker 3 (45:47):
We're a movement.
Thank you so much. Yeah .
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