Meet Jack Walters | Cofounder & CEO

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jack Walters and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jack, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I have always been fascinated by the idea of impact. During my first college internship, I was committed to becoming the CEO one day so I could have the responsibility I wanted and create the impact I was so intensely seeking. But I quickly realized that would take 20 years.

So, I kept searching during college—getting into defense, consulting, and construction—all with the end goal of finding what I believed to be the most important thing: impact.

It wasn’t until my senior year, while working on a research grant from the CIA research labs on the project that would eventually become HapWare, that I realized entrepreneurship was the answer. No need to wait 20 years to make an impact—because the entrepreneur is the one crazy enough to believe they can change the world and build something 10x better than the current solution.

After that realization, I was hooked. I turned down job offers and decided to build what is now called HapWare.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
At HapWare, we provide people who are blind, low vision, deaf-blind, or neurodiverse with access to nonverbal communication and social cues. Our product, AlEye, identifies facial expressions, emotions, gestures, and body language in real time and translates them into tactile feedback on the user’s wrist. It consists of a pair of glasses with an integrated camera that reads these cues and communicates them through vibrations on a wristband. With AlEye, users can tell if someone is happy, agitated, engaged, reaching for a handshake, and much more. AlEye enables more confident, inclusive, and meaningful interactions at school, at work, and in daily life. After just two minutes of use, users can recognize up to seven new nonverbal cues.
The best part of being at HapWare is hearing how people are using AlEye in daily life. We have people tell us “it began to restore a once long-lost depth of everyday communication.” and students say “This wearable is great for understanding emotions”. It gets me excited to see the technology we create change peoples lives and knowing that we are just getting started.

We got to where we are today by letting our why and our vision be the north star. Starting a business while you’re in college is never easy—and it’s impossible to do it alone. That’s why I’ve never been afraid to ask questions or speak up. Whether we’re recruiting new team members, making sales, or asking for support, I let the vision do the talking.

HapWare began through a federal research project that challenged us to build something using haptic technology. It was a pretty open-ended prompt. That led us, a group of students, to dive into research—figuring out what haptics are and how they can be used. We were all passionate about making a real impact and building tech for good.

Our mentor on the grant happened to be a member of the blind community—he’s now our co-founder. That connection led us to start talking to people with disabilities and just listening. Asking questions. And through those conversations, we uncovered a massive, often overlooked problem: communication.

Once the project ended, we spun it off into a business—and as of December, I have officially graduated from the Colorado School of Mines.

There have been many challenges in starting HapWare. The first is that when you’re building a hardware + software product from scratch, you can always count on something not working. What matters most is the process you use to debug and solve problems. Issues in technology are inevitable—but having a strong framework and a team that can adapt without getting overwhelmed is critical.

That leads to the second point: building a great team. We bring on people based on alignment of strengths, not a lack of weaknesses. In other words, we look for individuals with skill sets that allow them to immediately contribute to the technical challenges at hand. A project manager from a multibillion-dollar company may not have many weaknesses—but in an early-stage startup, we get far more value from a specialized software engineer who directly matches the needs of the product we’re building.

Another key lesson we’ve learned is that progress is not linear. This was one of the hardest lessons for me personally—I’ve never had much patience, I love speed, and I need a constant sense of urgency. But I’ve come to understand that great and extraordinary things take time. I’ve shipped products too early in the past that didn’t meet our standards, and I learned from it. Now, we set both internal and external goals to maintain urgency, while ensuring that we only ship products that meet the bar we’ve set for ourselves.

The world should know that HapWare is building a new category of wearable—one that is the ultimate tool for communication, clarity, and connection, and it’s built for everyone. It offers real-time recognition of everything nonverbal: deceptive cues, microexpressions, sentiment, gestures, and body language—all communicated discreetly through haptic feedback.

We believe access to information is a right, not a luxury.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Day 1: Golden Welcome
We’d kick things off in downtown Golden—my old stomping grounds. First stop: The Golden Mill. I used to work there, s we’d grab a Coors Light (because when in Golden, right?) with a view of Clear Creek and the foothills. After that, we’d walk around downtown and swing by the Colorado School of Mines to show off my alma mater. I’d give them the unofficial “nerd tour”—engineering buildings and the venture center.

Day 2: Outdoor Adventures
Time to get outside. We’d rent tubes and float down Clear Creek—and grab a sandwich at Cheese Ranch Deli, In the afternoon, we’d hike Lookout Mountain to catch sunset views over Golden and Denver. Maybe stop by Buffalo Bill’s grave just for the fun of it.

Day 3: Dirt Bike Day
Next, we’d head to Southern Colorado or Boulder for some dirt biking—one of my favorite ways to explore the backcountry. I’d introduce them to my wild crew of dirt biking friends and we’d tear it up on some of the best trails in the state. If we chose Boulder, we’d end the ride with a walk down Pearl Street to see the street performers and grab margaritas and Mexican food at The Rio.

Days 4–6: Rocky Mountain Escape
We’d pack up and head into Rocky Mountain National Park for a long weekend of camping. Think alpine lakes and campfire. I’d make sure we hit one of my favorite lakes for a cold plunge.

Day 7: Chill
After a few intense days, we’d wrap up back in town with a chill day—maybe brunch at Cafe 13 in Golden, then an easy walk around town or a drive up to Red Rocks Amphitheatre for a concert.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The only reason HapWare is where it is today—and why I get to call this my dream job—is because of the incredible people on our team. It’s always nice to be recognized or win an award, but when that happens, it’s not because of something I did. It’s because we have a group of world-class individuals working together to solve one of the biggest problems on Earth.

This shoutout is dedicated to the HapWare team of engineers, marketers, advisors—and to the Colorado School of Mines. Thank you for making this possible.

Website: https://www.hapware.com/

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