New York, New York, May 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — TIME has named David Nussbaum, Founder and Chairman of Proto Inc., to its 2025 TIME100 Health list in the “Innovators” category, recognizing his pioneering work creating hologram and AI technology to expand access to healthcare. The annual list honors the 100 most influential figures shaping global health.
Featured in the May 26 print edition, TIME praised Proto Hologram for its impact on rural healthcare access by “beaming” doctors into clinics, its real-time AI translation tools, HIPAA-compliant systems, and newly reduced cost—making the technology more accessible than ever. Read the story here.
Nussbaum shares the honor with leaders such as Alice Walton, Bill Nye, and WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“Nothing is more important than connecting with your doctor in person to create that emotional, physical connection—especially when you’re talking about something as important as cancer or Parkinson’s or life-altering news,” Nussbaum told TIME.
Dr. Sylvia Richie of West Cancer Center beams live across the country to talk with Proto Founder David Nussbaum. West Cancer and Proto launched the first real doctor-patient hologram appointments in 2024.
The first company to install Proto technology to beam doctors to patients for real appointments was West Cancer Center in Tennessee. Since then many major clinics have launched pilot programs to bring the solution to the shortage of caregivers to more underserved populations. Proto is also in use in higher education medical and healthcare programs including the University of Central Florida CHPS program, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the University of Minnesota’s Hormal Institute and the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.
“This honor of being on the Time100 Health list really belongs to the entire Proto team,” said Nussbaum.”Their belief, talent, hustle and heart have built this company and this incredible technology. A spotlight on any of us is a reflection on all of us. I’m so grateful that I get to work with this team every single day. This is also a tribute to the companies and organizations that have been brave and imaginative enough to take the leap – the doctors and nurses and patients and executives who are putting Proto’s hologram communication and AI tools in action to help people everywhere.”
West Cancer Center’s Dr. Sylvia Richie demonstrates live hologram medical appointments by beaming from Tennessee to Los Angeles to be present in a Proto Luma.
Proto is the original, patented hologram communications and AI spatial compute platform in use around the world by dozens of Fortune 500 companies, 50 universities, and stadiums, airports, hospitals and malls everywhere. In addition to healthcare, Proto is active in education, finance, retail, hospitality, sports and entertainment. Proto has been recognized previously as the inventor of the technology by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, the Today Show, CNN and the BBC.
The full 2025 TIME100 Health list appears in the May 26, 2025 print issue of TIME and at time.com/time100health.
See Proto in action on Instagram.
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About Proto Inc.: Proto Inc. is the patented leader in hologram technology and AI spatial computing. Proto devices and its platform are in use across enterprise, finance, healthcare, education, retail, hospitality, sports and entertainment. Invented in Los Angeles and with showrooms and distribution partners around the globe, Proto distributes the large Proto Epic and Proto Luma, the desktop-sized Proto M2, and a suite of hologram AI and spatial computing services. Learn more at protohologram.com
- David Nussbaum, Founder and Chairman of Proto Inc.
