Todd Huffman is an American technology entrepreneur and prolific photographer. He was a co-founder of the biomedical imaging company,

3Scan 3Scan, Inc. was an American biotechnology company based in San Francisco, California. It offered automated microscopy services using a coordinated combination of both hardware and software for the 3D analysis of cells, tissues, and organs. The c ...

, co-founder of the un-conference

BIL Conference BIL is an unconference organized and observed by the participants. It was founded in 2007 by Cody Marx Bailey, Todd Huffman, Bill Erickson and others who volunteered to help with the idea. BIL started as an unaffiliated unconference satellite to ...

, and a member of the disaster aid group

Synergy Strike Force Synergy Strike Force was the self-chosen informal name of a group of individuals who applied crowd-sourcing, crowdsourcing techniques towards aid work in Afghanistan. Dave Warner (neuroscientist), Dave Warner, an MD, neuroscientist and U.S. Army, A ...

Career

In 2011, Huffman co-founded 3Scan, a firm that develops new techniques for

biomedical imaging Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to revea ...

. ''

Biz Journals American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor News ...

'' called 3Scan's main technology, the

Knife-edge scanning microscope The Knife-Edge Scanning Microscope (KESM) was invented and patented in the late 1990s by Bruce McCormick at Texas A&M University. The microscope is intended to produce high-resolution data sets in order to reconstruct 3D cellular structures. The ...

, a ''"robotic microscope."'' The microscope rapidly sections and scans samples, building 3d models of microscopic structures. ''

Singularity Hub Singularity Education Group (using the public names Singularity Group, Singularity University or SingularityU) is an American company that offers executive educational programs, a business incubator, and business consultancy services. Although ...

'' magazine quoted Huffman's description of their goal: “We’re trying to move from a world where humans are hunting and pecking through tissue looking for answers to a world where we generate large and reproducible data sets where we can use analytics to drive insights and real cures.” In January 2015, ''

Forbes magazine ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' interviewed Huffman, asking him to explain the approach to technology his firm was taking. In July 2016, ''Biz Journals'' reported that venture capital firms had invested an additional $11 million in 3Scan, reporting the total as $21 million.

Sharon Weinberger Sharon Weinberger is an American journalist and writer on defense and security issues. She is a Carnegie/Newhouse School Legal Reporting Fellow where her "project will examine a legally murky intersection between ethics and fraud in military contr ...

, author of a book about

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Ad ...

entitled ''The Imagineers of War'', described Huffman influencing

decision-makers, following a chance meeting where he described how he and other volunteers had used innovative modeling techniques to aid civilians in disaster zones and warzones. Huffman was a regular visitor to

Jalalabad Jalalabad (; Dari/ ps, جلال‌آباد, ) is the fifth-largest city of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 356,274, and serves as the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part of the country, about from the capital Kabul. Jal ...

, in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

, where he worked with other technology workers affiliated with an informal group known as the

, using technology to help improve the quality of life for Afghan civilians and training them in the use of peaceful technologies such as computers and wireless internet. Huffman is a cofounder of the

, an ''unconference'' organized and observed by the participants as an unaffiliated counterpart to TED’s structured, ‘invite-only’ paid conference.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huffman, Todd 1980 births Living people American inventors American businesspeople American computer scientists