A maker in the truest sense of the word, Aaron Horowitz blends art, engineering, and empathy to bring bold ideas to life.
From his earliest sculptures to founding companies, Aaron Horowitz has always been fascinated by the journey from concept to creation. His own experience growing up with human growth hormone deficiency shaped his mission: to design technology that doesn’t just solve problems, but connects with people on a deeply human level.
As co-founder and CEO of Empath Labs, Aaron leads a team redefining the patient experience through emotionally intelligent design. Their innovations include Jerry the Bear, a teaching tool and companion for children with type 1 diabetes; My Special Aflac Duck, a robotic friend for kids with cancer and sickle cell disease; and Purrble, a calming companion that responds to touch. These creations aren’t just award-winning—they’re life-changing. And behind each one is Aaron’s belief that compassion is just as important as code.
In his talks, Aaron invites audiences inside the creative process that drives meaningful innovation. He shares stories of failure, perseverance, and human connection—offering a powerful perspective on what it means to design with purpose. Whether you're a leader, maker, or changemaker, you’ll walk away inspired to bring more empathy to your work and boldness to your ideas.
- Empathy is a Superpower
- Aaron details the design process for My Special Aflac Duck - working with over 100 children and 35 doctors to create a product that provides comfort and joy to children undergoing chemotherapy. Audience members learn about design thinking and the empathetic power that comes from listening to your end users, and creating products with them. This talk is often customized depending on the audience to draw tangible takeaways that listeners can use to implement design thinking practices within their own companies
- Innovation, Invention, and Design Thinking
- Aaron's longer form version of “Empathy is a superpower” that contextualizes design thinking within the fields of innovation and invention. He shares key learnings from Empath Labs internal design process and the creation of our products for children with illness. This talk provides a framework that encourages prototyping and testing early and often, which can be simplified as “you learn 80% of the information you need from a prototype that’s 20% complete.” The talk also debunks the myth of the lone inventor, discussing how ideas are formed jointly among teams. Lastly the talk discusses the superpower of empathy, and how designing products with users helps mitigate product failure.
- Just Start Building
- Aaron empowers audiences to take the first steps in their own creative projects. The talk begins with a historical explanation of how humans are inherently makers - from our paleolithic days, through the industrial revolution, to present. He draws from his own experience learning a wide range of skills out of necessity, from design to robotics to starting a business, to empower the audience to begin tackling the projects they dream of through small, incremental, baby steps.