Colton El-Habr was a Whiting School of Engineering (WSE) student for a little over a year before dropping out in 2023 to commit full-time to Orbit Technologies (Orbit). Orbit is the neurotechnology startup El-Habr co-founded with Steven Pang, a former student at Georgetown University. In an interview with The News-Letter, El-Habr discussed his journey with the startup along with the details of Orbit’s technology.
El-Habr transferred to Hopkins after spending his first year at Georgetown, a result of switching his career interests from international affairs to engineering.
“I [went back to visit] Georgetown and some friends I have in the area in May 2023. While describing some of the work I was doing in WSE Manufacturing, [one friend] was like ‘Oh, dude, that’s really cool. I know this student here named Steven and he’s building these neurostimulators, but he hasn't found any engineers who can help build it. Let me put you guys into contact,” he said.
El-Habr then spent the August of that year in Washington, D.C., building with Pang, which set the foundations for Orbit. Currently, Orbit’s main project focuses on a specific type of neurostimulator — a vestibular stimulator.
The vestibular system consists of organs in the inner ear and plays a significant role in the body’s sense of balance and position. Artificially stimulating the vestibular system can impact an individual’s sense of balance and their perception of motion, even if the motion is not occurring in real-time.
Furthermore, the vestibular system’s direct connection to brain structures such as the hippocampus and thalamus can be leveraged for health benefits and enhancing virtual reality experiences. Previous studies have shown a connection between vestibular system function and spatial memory, as well as a causal relationship between peripheral vestibular stimulation and thalamus activation. The thalamus is connected to sensory functions and processes like sleep and consciousness. This suggests that the system plays a role in multiple core functions in the body, including measurable quantities like heart rate and blood pressure.
Another reason Orbit focuses on the vestibular system is due to the current difficulties of achieving a comprehensive understanding of the brain and how it functions due to its complexity and abstractions.
“In the simplest approximation, the brain performs as a neural net. You can't look at this analytically. We know from training LLMs that when it comes to neural nets, data is the name of the game. I don't think you can ever get the data needed in an isolated, academic setting... We don't have that data yet, but what we can do in the meantime is take existing ‘high-level APIs’ that already exist in the brain. The vestibular system is one of the most accessible and impactful of these.”
El-Habr called for a different perspective to decode the brain at Orbit, a contrast to the traditional wet-lab techniques and mouse models in the field of neuroscience. This outlook is a characteristic that El-Habr emphasized as part of the central thesis at Orbit.
He also emphasized that neurotechnology requires a compelling product to successfully enter consumer markets. He argued that technologies dependent on large-scale development must find practical applications in industry, as academic research alone cannot achieve the scale or growth driven by the free market.
“If you want to make meaningful models of how the brain actually works at a detailed level you need lots and lots and lots of data; academia will never scale to that data. If you want to make meaningful models of how the brain actually works at a detailed level you need lots and lots and lots of data; academia will never scale to that data, but a mind-blowing product will create markets that can,” El-Habr stated.
This is a rapidly spreading sentiment, as shown by increasing interest in neurotechnology. As of 2025, the global market in this field was valued around 15 billion dollars and is expected to increase in twofold in the next couple of decades.
Another core tenet to Orbit’s philosophy is explained by their motto: Make magic.
“This idea of putting electricity through your head... when the effect isn't absolutely stunning, especially in comparison to something simple like coffee... people are just inherently very scared of it,” he added. “It's kind of like this sci-fi idea where people even may see it as a little bit dystopian. The way to get people more on board with this is to just make the product so incredibly good that the benefits outweigh the skepticism.”
This mindset extends to their discussions with potential investors. They let their work speak for itself, bridging any gap in scientific background.
“Honestly, [investors] are not going to have that knowledge, and it's not super important that they do. [Instead], we have a demo that we bring,” El-Habr said. “We put this headset on, and they have a little joystick. They move it around and feel like they're moving in those directions… To an investor, it is this magical experience that they've never felt before and, until we walked into the room, did not know was possible.”
Throughout the past year, progress has been made regarding the company’s infrastructure, including updating its non-invasive electrodes to inject more current at a safe capacity and modulating sleep more successfully.
In addition to the recent engineering steps, Orbit has also made updates in other areas. Their headquarters have moved from D.C. to Boston, and two new members — Mark Khrapko and Spencer Green — have joined the team. El-Habr stated the latter as the most important achievement made so far.
“If you don't hire well, you won't succeed. It's that simple. A startup is really just a team of people getting stuff done; the quality of your team is the quality of your startup,” he explained.
Lastly, El-Habr offered some reflections for students want to pursue a similar path.
“Raw talent is not what will lead a founder to success. The difference between the successes and failures is really just grit and focus, because building a company is a nonstop grind,” he explained. “To this day, I still believe that that's the case.”
