(Yicai Global) Nov. 4 -- BrainCo's Focus headbands, which track the concentration levels of wearers in real time, are intended to aid education and are not meant to monitor students, founder Han Bicheng told Yicai Global after photos showing a classroom of children wearing the devices prompted concerns over surveillance.

"The device doesn't have a monitoring function," the Harvard graduate said. Many of the Massachusetts-based firm's employees use the headbands to help their children develop focus, Han said, adding that training the brain is akin to physical exercise for the body.

Public concern over the devices has been rife since a school in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, began offering them to students to improve their concentration. The headbands were supposed to indicate whether the children were focused in class and when doing homework.

But the local education bureau ordered the school to stop using the devices and requested all other schools in the region make sure that the data they hold on students is protected, the school told Beijing News on Oct. 31. Many citizens were concerned that the data being collected was a risk to wearers and that students were losing out on their freedom.

"We fully protect student privacy," Han added, saying the system cannot send reports on the data it collects to parents and that all information is uploaded to an encrypted cloud database. Focus allows teachers to adjust their teaching methods based on how engaged students are in real time, he said.

Born in 1987, the young entrepreneur founded BrainCo in 2015 while he was still pursuing a doctorate at Harvard's Center for Brain Science. The company was the first Chinese team ever inducted into the prestigious college's official incubator, Innovation Lab.

Editor: James Boynton