In another life, Kathryn Zealand was a theoretical physicist. Her PhD topic was devoted to one, single, massive equation for measuring the entropy of black holes — an equation, she adds, that has yet to be solved.
“Even if I solved the problem, no one's life is going to be different,” she told me on a call last week. “Black holes aren't going to actually change our lives for hopefully billions of years.”
Zealand naturally did what any theoretical physicist hoping to make a non-theoretical impact before the sun runs out of hydrogen would do: went into humanitarian law work for an NGO in sub-Saharan Africa. Ultimately, the humanitarian part proved a better fit than the law one.
After a brief stint at McKinsey, she found herself at Alphabet X headquarters, in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Google’s famed and famously secretive division has housed its own humanitarian efforts in Africa’s sub-Saharan region, most notably, the now-defunct Project Loon, which sought to provide internet access to rural regions via weather balloon.
Zealand joined Alphabet’s in-house incubator as general manager in 2018. After pitching and working on various projects, she ultimately narrowed her scope to a trio of causes she’d happily devote her life to tackling: climate change, income inequality, and human movement. It was a feasible solution to the last that formed the foundation of Skip, which graduated from Alphabet in 2023.
The startup specializes in “powered clothing,” embedding exoskeleton components into a pair of pants for an assistive walking experience. The concept of wearable robotics is not a new one, but Skip’s offering pares the getup down considerably from the kind you’ll see workers using to lift heavy boxes in warehouses. It’s also less pronounced than most examples of wearable robotics for walking assistance currently on the market.
Movement made its way into Zealand’s top three issues when — like most of us — she saw it impacting those close to her. As someone who considers themselves a generally compassionate person, I will confess that I’ve taken special interest in the topic as it’s manifested in family members. I had a grandmother who lived with MS and — much more recently — a member of my immediate family has been battling a Parkinson’s diagnosis.
The latter, in particular, is an early focus for Skip. However, the company’s first product, announced in 2024, targeted an altogether different market. The Mo/Go (short for “Mountain Goat”) was first made available for California hikers through a limted-edition rental partnership with outdoor apparel brand Arc’teryx. Zealand compares the wearable’s mobility assistance to an e-bike, making the wearer feel “30 pounds lighter.”
“If you picture a future where everyone has the product, what needs to be true?” Zealand rhetorically posited. “We need to make products that people actually want to wear. It’s comfortable, it’s easy to put on, you can adjust it easily. What is the quickest way to prove that part of the problem? That’s Mo/Go. It’s direct-to-consumer, it’s single-joint only, and we’re aiming for it to be a product that people love.”
Echoing the early days of e-bikes, the $5,000 price tag almost certainly dooms it to luxury item status. Even at a lower price point, however, it’s difficult to imagine a first-gen product like Mo/Go becoming a runaway hit. The wearable’s limited pilot did, however, garner positive writeups from tech pubs. Skip recently transitioned to a new manufacturing facility and expects to ramp up production in 2026.
Fine print on the official product page clarifies that it is, “not a medical device and has not yet been cleared by the FDA.” Those remain important milestones for Zealand and Skip, though likely ones they’ll reach with a different product.
Backing from the Michael J. Fox Foundation has enabled the company to test technologies in Parkinson’s patients. Much of the work is concerned with a freezing of gait, a common symptom which causes a person to suddenly stop mid-movement. The issue presents a number of second issues, including falling. If a device like Skip could build a sophisticated model of its wearer’s gait, it might be able to predict the intended outcome during a freeze. This is easier said than done, of course, and you certainly don’t want a device forcibly moving limbs in ways the wearer didn’t ultimately intend.
“We're about to kick off another two-year phase, which is really about turning that into a product,” says Zealand. “What we've done and what other groups have done has mostly been in the lab or maybe in someone's home, for kind a supervised, hour session. What we're shooting towards is in a couple of years being able to send someone like your dad home with a device and see, not just does it work for them in a moment, but does it work for them over a month, right? Does it improve their quality of life? Are they being more active? Are they taking more steps?”
Clinical trials are notoriously lengthy, and so, too, are approval processes for regulatory bodies like the FDA. But even the longest waiting period should arrive well before the sun runs out of hydrogen.
