Meet The HealthTech Impact Award Winners & The Personal Stories That Sparked Their Innovations.

Hello and welcome to a very special edition of The Tech Glow Up. This week, I'm featuring five innovators who just recently won awards and notoriety at the HealthTech Impact Showdown, a project that Sabrina Runbeck shared with us a few weeks ago that helps new entrepreneurs hone their pitch, get in front of the right kinds of funders, and compete in a game show style setting to, share their company and meet the right people. So we have five winners that I'm really excited to share with you. Each will have a dedicated segment, and we'll share more about the work that they are doing in health tech innovation. First, Ellyn Ito of InnerStill shares her pitch for MindVibe, a patented neuromodulation device, a piece of hardware that uses low intensity electronic stimulation to help regulate your nervous system and give you a feeling of grounding relaxation. Alex Koshykov of YODD introduces us to a new multimodal testing device that allows patients to take a lot of biometric data and share it with a primary care physician instead of traveling hours and hours. This innovation looks specifically to help with access to care as well as speed to care, in rural populations. Super cool. Claire Dixon of Neuraura discusses her LoOop product, a hardware innovation focused on relieving the symptoms and discomfort of PCOS, a condition that causes a lot of pain and discomfort for many women yet has been understudied. LoOop is both a abdominal patch with electronic stimulation and a platform that helps fill in gaps in the care cycle with things like a knowledge base, personal journaling, and an AI chat assistant to help you through your care journey. Dr. Chigozie Michael Nwalozie of Zarephath Health describes non-invasive urine-based tests for HPV, STDs, and many other markers, delivering results in as little as 10 minutes and transforming what is possible for remote care in Africa. His efforts are expanding access to care across a 16-country territory. Fascinating. Tayaru Bayyana of SereniCare AI outlines her proactive decision platform that makes cancer care both more transparent and more empowering for both patients and caregivers alike. Inspired by her father's own struggle with a stage four cancer, SereniCare AI looks to improve that patient journey by using data to help everyone make more empowered and proactive decisions. This episode is full of personal stories and powerful new technologies and quite a few different healthcare technology hardware devices. Really cool to meet these global innovators who won at the Health Tech Impact Showdown Awards. Thanks so much for joining and listening. I hope you enjoy meeting all five of these amazing winners. Congrats to all. Hello and welcome to a special edition of The Tech Glow Up. We're here with the first of our Health Tech Impact Showdown Award winners, and today I'm talking with Ellyn Ito of Innerstill™. Ellyn, thanks so much for joining me on the Tech Glow Up. I'm so glad to meet you and your work.

Oh my goodness. Thank you

So to get things started, congratulations, you've just recently gone through the Health Tech Impact Showdown. You honed your pitch, you gave it in front of a Board of experts, and you came out a winner. Can you, for those of us who haven't met you yet, can you please introduce yourself?

Sure. So I'm Ellyn Ito. I'm the CEO and Co-founder. And. Investor in Innerstill™, and we are launching Do No Harm platform, neuro electric technologies for both wellness and clinical care.

Oh, I'm interested. tell me more about Innerstill, you've just been working on through the, health Tech Impact Showdown. You've been honing your pitch, in a couple minutes. Can you introduce the work that you're doing at Inners still?

during the pandemic. My 15-year-old son became suicidal nothing we tried seemed to help. so I went searching solutions and found the answers in my co-founders who were, who were brilliant. And together we formed dinner still. So we're addressing the root cause of dysregulation. And so millions right now are seeking side free side effect free solutions to address stress, mental health issues or neurodegenerative disease. And most solutions today focus on symptom management versus root cause remediation. So our first product is mindvybe. It is a patented. Vagus nerve and acupressure point regulator, and it's launched as a wellness product through wellness practitioners and high intent premium consumers and organizations who are looking to elevate mental resilience. It gives the 217 million biohackers the edge, and it's also a solution for the millions. Seeking relief from stress, poor sleep, agitation, lack of focus, and brain fog. I mean, can you imagine a teen finding relief without the ups and downs of managing meds? a reality for us. We will take a version of mindvybe through a five 10 KFDA pathway so we can expand access. But right now it's launched as a wellness device and we're seeing traction with over 5,000 users for clinical studies and early revenue through practitioners and those organizations and, educational institutions. Our work has won three state innovation grants and recognition for its community impact. but we're just getting started because that's mindvybe. We're also advancing a patented, non-invasive deep brain system to improve symptoms of dementia. With early experience showing delayed progression and restored function, more studies need to be done, but it's exciting. unlike other neuromodulation devices, there are no side effects to date, no uncomfortable sensations and no muscle twitch. there's no risk of overuse or what they call saturation. And there's no need to set parameters because our tech autoregulates for the individual. we've raised 1.3 million in safe funding to date, and we're now raising a 10 million seed to scale our wellness commercialization, mind, vibe, and advance our FDA platform. And so when we think about the future of health and longevity, it's no longer just symptom management. We are seeing too many downstream effects from just treating the symptom. about safely restoring the systems that regulate mind and body at the root. learn more and come join our mission. We invite you to vibe.

Oh my gosh, Ellyn. I feel like you might have been an industry plant.'cause like you're speaking to several of like my passions and the things that I rant about. you know, I, Okay. There are a couple things that you called out, right, that like the combination of isolation, of digital overuse, of like pandemic level fears that students today are facing has. Just in the last six years transformed the mental health landscape and challenges for youth from four years old to college age. Like that entire generation really got hammered, and I honestly don't think we talk enough about it, beyond the like, oh. Oh heck, what can we even do? That must be awful. And so thank you, for taking action and, you know, building solutions to this thing that is amazingly underdressed. What I really wanna get into though is tell me more about how a piece of hardware is gonna understand my mode, my mood, and help me start to regulate. Can you talk me through what's the experience like? Is it haptics, is it sound, is it light? It sounds like it might be all three. what are we looking at?

So mindvybe, delivers ultra low electrical current, so in frequencies that, most people feel nothing. And the way that it autoregulates, it's optimized for about, 85% of the population, the frequency ranges and the wave forms. engage the rest, digest, and recover function of the, the nervous system. And so by delivering these ultra low frequencies, in a format and an algorithm that auto adjusts to each person's own. Skin impedances, everyone has different moisture and thickness and musculature. so what our technology does is it basically autoregulates for the individual. And and the reason why that's important is because it's impossible to know what you need versus what I need just based on how much sensation I can tolerate. the other important thing about the technology. there are other stimulators out there on the market and they, they do have efficacy. What's very unique about ours is that it is multi-mode. not only vagal nerve stimulation, but acupressure point stimulation, there's also no risk of overuse. What that means, it's designed for use as often as needed. And what we find with other technologies is you can be on it for a while. It works. It seems to be great, just like medications, it works. And then after a while, the effect seems to lessen. In this case, our technology is there when you need it, without that risk of saturation.

how would I use it? what is it like when I use it? How long does it take? where do I do it?

Yeah. So right now we've launched through various practitioners who are focused on wellness and resilience. And so you would go into their location, whether it's a wellness spa, an employer's. Wellness location, and you, and you are connected to the machine. It is a fifty, 5-0, minute session where you can work, you can sleep, you can meditate, you can have a meeting. you do not have to interact with the technology. You do not need to interact with the technology for it to interact with you. And, and, and so that makes it very fun for people who are very, you know, high performing. I don't have time for this and I can't meditate'cause I have too much to do. You put'em on the machine, they're on their computer typing away, and after their second or third session, they're able to kind of sit quietly because in this day and age with cognitive overload. With, you know, we did not evolve as humans to be bombarded with artificial light and constant news and all of this stimulation, and what we know now is that by engaging that rest and recover function, that quiet space, it creates balance within the neurochemical aspects of the body and everything works better. is not me saying that this is shown in our studies and other studies.

Ellyn, I, I'm way too interested for the time we have today. So you forgive me if I have to kind of move on a little bit. So, you've already shared that you have a pretty ambitious roadmap and you, you have some big goals for, What is the Glow Up or notable transformation that you're looking to make in the short term? Say like three to six months. What's your startup Glow Up that you're working on?

So our startup Glow Up is to partner with impact investors. investors who are passionate about our space and making a difference in the brain health economy that they can work with us to expand our market and are excited about not only nice returns for sh their shareholders themselves, but also impact to the communities that we're serving. Impact to all stakeholders. so that Glow Up for us is really expanding our community beyond just our practitioners and our researchers. We wanna expand it so that people understand that there's another way to improve brain health without side effects. We wanna expand our impact by helping people to understand that, that there is a first line offense helping to restore balance in the brain and body without first having to reach for a pill or a more invasive option.

I mean, Ellyn is, is I have, incredible A DHD and like the, the anxiety to match it and regulation is like a constant struggle and as like a. I'm a professional in today's world, right? Like I feel as the day goes, like slowly becoming like an email Gollum where I need to just like engage with my precious, you know, communications. And that is when I know that like, hey, I'm. I've learned over lots of practice that that's when I'm dysregulated and like, Hey, you should go take a walk. Hey, like, you need to get back into your flow, into your strategic brain, into your body. And for me, one of the right, like learning that moment was key, but learning how to disrupt that feeling before. And the thing that I love, that's kind of, that's this underlying subtext is right, you can disrupt it when you need to. You can take a break when and where you need to. And that, there's not this risk that you have to be, you know, what do we call it? they have to be like saving it, you know, for those moments of repair that this is something that you could ideally build into your day and, and use to, to both understand your regulation and to maintain it where you, where you like it. So, so fascinating.

and the other beautiful thing we're seeing with our users, is that once they understand what that calm feels like, they're able to employ other tools to get there. Like so many people have said, oh, I wonder if this is what meditation feels like. Well now they understand that calm, it's easier for them to get there. The other cool thing is, as people understand and start to feel that balance and get into that quiet space, we get comments all the time that people feel like they're more creative or more productive or even more intuitive. there's reasons why that is. But this is why we're so excited and I'm so passionate about.

Yes.

but then we have the other for neurodegeneration.

We're gonna have to bring you back on to talk about neurodegeneration because Right. One of the like successes in healthcare in my generation, like in my lifetime, that I'm just astounded by is that like Alzheimer's became a disease. And there are now multiple cures and treatments in the market. And it was like the most scary, terrifying thing ever, when it first came out. And to have that kind of hope,

Hmm.

and treatments, is, is so crucial. Ellyn. I'm really interested in hearing the stories that make innovation work. We hear so much about the successes, the press releases, the announcements, but like the, the hard work and the good advice that actually makes the difference is where I'm so interested and as a founder who's like. Working with patient, you know, working with customers who's got thousands of vybers vibes out there in the world, who's got this ambitious plan and has already had some notable funding. I'd love to hear, you know, what's the advice that's been important to you on your journey? How have, fa you know, coaches, mentors, or other people advised you on your journey as a entrepreneur?

Oh wow. So, there's, there's one, mentor. His name is Dov Baron, who's been just, he has just picked me up when I've been at my lowest and he's my biggest cheerleader and I've seen him work with so many others, but he really has, impressed with me stay true to the values, stay true to the values of why you are doing this. but also stay open to feedback. And as a founder, and, and most founders know this, that you know when you are, you know, raising money, you're having to prioritize spend. Sometimes you have no money in the bank account and you're maxed out on your credit cards. do what you can with what you have to move your mission forward and never give up. Because if this is your passion and you see the vision and the value you can provide, never give up.

I can't tell if that's the mic drop moment at the end, or if we put that at the front to get people to listen. the idea. That I fell in love with when you were talking about this idea, is that you have to believe in yourself and also be open for feedback, and that is such a challenge, right? When the feedback doesn't match the vision, you know that can feel like a failure, This idea of like, every day is a day you can work on your business if you know that it has that transformational power, like believe in it and work on it every day at the level you can today. What fantastic advice, for founders at any stage. I so appreciate that, Ellyn.

Yeah.

so yeah, go ahead.

I was just gonna say, and that's the biggest challenge, right? Is, is knowing when to move your ego out of the way the fear that you might have, and really being open to those ideas of what might matter and being able to tell Does it align with the values your vision?

If we're being honest, it's probably your ego's fear, not like actual fear.

Absolutely. That's exactly right. As our other founder says, fear is false evidence appearing real.

So Ellyn, it sounds like you have done one of the things that all smart founders do, which is surround yourself with really great advisors and people who sort of match, the skills and gaps that you have to be there for you when you need it. So, bravo there. Ellyn, I'm curious if folks wanna learn more, find you out in the world, how can they learn more and, connect with y'all?

check me out on LinkedIn. message me there. you can also go to our website, www.innerstillhealth.com. Our product website is www.mindvybe.com we welcome and are open to, to any questions.

Ellyn Ito, CEO, and co-founder at Innerstill™. Launching their mind, vibe, product, and changing the way that professionals all around the world can self-regulate and, get that feeling of calm. congratulations on your recent win on the Health Tech Impact Showdown, and thank you so much for sharing your entrepreneurial journey on the tech Glow Up.

Absolutely. Well, thank you Nathan. I really appreciate it.

Such a treat. This is another special episode from the Health Tech Impact Awards, and today I'm talking with Dr. Chigozie Michael Nwalozie of Zara Path Health. Dr. Chigozie, it is such a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for joining me on The Tech Glow Up.

Thank you Nathan. It is amazing and I like being here. Thank you.

can you introduce yourself and your role at Zara Path Health?

Thank you so much. My name is Dr. Chigozie. a medical doctor by training and educator by passion, and I am the director for West Africa at Zarephath Health.

Amazing, congratulations on your recent win for the Health Tech impact, showdown. Could you, could you share the pitch that you've been working on, that brought you to the winner circle?

Okay. Thank you so much, Nathan Once again. Zarapath Health is an African diagnostic company. were founded in 2019 it is headquartered in South Africa and Zimbabwe. But anything on the West African side is under my care now. most recently we are actually undergoing a validation studies for two of our test kits. You can see this is, the HPV urine rapid tests. Okay. As well as the three in one. But this is the 6 in 1 I have here, the three one STI urine tests. Okay. And these are urine based. Why this important? It is non-invasive. It is rapid, and our test results come out as early as 10 minutes. So three parts. We were looking at screening, and treatments. That's the pathway. These day and age we see in an African setting, most of the tests are invasive. That is not what we are about. And then it'll make these women or these ladies to have a second thought, should I go for this test? Shouldn't I go for this test Something like pap smear. apologies to the female folk, but you see it is invasive. But our tests, These are urine based. All you need is a urine sample, first voice, urine sample, and then our result come out as early as 10 minutes. So we are doing this and there are 16 countries that are involved. Actually, they've been saying, okay, they're interested in coming on board, which is not a problem. But right now we've kicked off with 16 countries cutting across Southern Africa, Africa, Eastern Africa, central Africa, and West Africa. So we've been doing this, and then we are saying that governments leading funding partners and institutions should come on board for us to do this together. One logic I always put out there is this. Why do we have to compete when we can collaborate? Okay? When you collaborate, you go further. Now, an African analogy goes this way. Anytime when you want to wash your hand, imagine doing this. You cannot wash your hand with one hand. It'll not be effective. But look at this, when you wash your hand this way, how effective can that be? So what does this tell us? We need collaboration in what we are doing. So we are opening our doors for government, for civil society organizations, as well as anybody who's interested in what we do. Now, I really want to also say this, that these are what we are looking at. Okay. But then the HPV urine test and the s st i three one urine test for Chlamydia, gonorrhea Trichomonas. This is what we are projecting out there, but our tests portfolio cut across a whole lot of others. HPV syphilis, hepatitis B, C, cancer markers, And the rest. Thank you so much, Nathan.

As, Dr. Chigozie, I'm. I'm really, my brain is going wild with, the possibilities. And what 10 minute rapid testing in a non-invasive way means for your patients, for the people that you care about this whole west coast of Africa. Can you talk about what does it mean, especially in the terms of these partnerships? How is a 10 minute rapid test changing the game for doctors, that you're partnering with?

Look at this. HIV, sorry. HPV is a global issue right now in an African setting. B, it remote be it in a very standardized technological setting. Our rapid tests can work. Now imagine you go to a healthcare pro, provider, do the test and then your test result come out as early as 10 minutes. I'll give you a typical example of a problem in an African setting. Now, some of these people in the rural communities do not even have access to healthcare. Access is the problem. Okay. The science is not a problem, but access is a problem. Most of them live in areas where there's no communication. Some of them don't even have a phone. Some of them don't even have electricity. how will you reach out to them when the test result is gonna take so long? Come on, it doesn't make sense. Let's just open on a thinking cap and look at the logic. Look at this. to see me, I screen you. Your result is out under 10 minutes. You are still standing there. Diagnosis is done and you are on your part to treatment within a short period of time. Let us use something like the Pap smear and the rest. Some of these results come out as as late as days or weeks. Now, how can you get a woman who came for tests in a remote area to come back for a follow up after a long period of time? Some of them will not have the time to come back again, so you lose them once. You might not get them again. So that is why we say rapid testing as early as 10 to 15 minutes is the way to go. Thank you.

thank you for, for sharing specific, I, I was guessing specifically that follow up care was gonna be a big pain point and Right. I love that. you're taking something that might like extend care into weeks or months, you know, to get back in touch with people to, you have the results today while you're still in the appointment with your caregiver. I love it. So, Dr Chigozie. Can you tell me? The show is called The Tech Glow Up and a Glow Up. we use to talk about transformation. We talk about growth. I really love to use it in terms of six month goals. So for somebody who has such a broad audience and some highly impactful technologies, what's the goal that you have, in the next six months that you're working on?

now we are talking about screening. Okay. Now goal is to be able to reach out to more people, not just in Africa, alone. Okay. We are trying to establish relationships, partnership across the world, be it in Latin America, be it in any part of the world. One thing I want to put out there is this. HPV, sorry, can affect anybody anywhere. It is not a respect of your name, your gender, your age, your status, whether you have money, whether you are poor, no no respect of anybody. We're looking how best to actually go from actual, screening to proper execution and scaling, not just within our locality, but beyond that. And then the 16 multi-country study, we're looking at, partnership not just for the 16 countries, but for more, more countries to come on board countries or people that see the need of what we are doing. And then resonate perfectly with our work. in the next few months, we, we expect that we must have scaled through beyond Africa. Beyond Africa, a perfect partnership and especially with lead funding partners, be it, governments, organizations, and the like.

the last question that I've been asking, I've, I'm really fascinated e especially with like doctor innovators, that, you know, the great advice from mentors, from coaches is something that every innovator, you know, talks about as instrumental on their journey. And I'm, I'm curious, can you share what, what has been the most important piece of advice you've gotten in your journey as an entrepreneur?

I'll say this clearly for all of us to get it perfectly. there's this saying that execution matters more than ideas. Nathan, anybody can have an idea. But the point is, what have you done about it? You have an idea. Nothing is done about it. We have the idea, we are doing something about it and what are we doing about it? Execution. That's what I'm saying. Execution is worth more than idea. So it is important for us to focus on the real problems. know what the problem is, and then we are focusing on it. We are bringing solutions, we are making a difference. And the three guiding light of our pathways was screening. be early accessible diagnosis. Again, it should be very easy for us to get and should be clear. And finally, treatment. The three pathways clear. Anytime screening, diagnosis, treatments very clear. It makes a very big difference. And above all, we are looking at. The right partnership. I said, give you the analogy from the start. I said, competition helps. No one, right? we both collaborate, we are going to make a massive difference globally. So this is not just an African thing. I must state this client most times because our company is. in situated in Africa, we think, okay, it's just an African thing. No, no. So let me just take it back again and say this HPV do no respect your nationality. respect of race, no respect of who, your name, whether you're a president, whether you're a senator, whether you are a common man, doesn't, matter how much you have in your back account, it doesn't respect that. So please let us come together, put our hands together, and see how best to make a global impact. Thank you. Peace.

Dr. Chigozie Michael Nwalozie, such a pleasure to learn about the rapid testing. That you are doing at Zarephath Health and how you are building both access and immediate results for people who right are, are really struggling, with both of those, things in healthcare. It's hard to disagree with, that easy access to, to fast results is, is really, a right, should be a right. when we think about healthcare, I can't wait, to see how you grow this mission, beyond, the west half of a very large country, continent. And, I can't wait to watch as you Glow Up, the work that you're doing at Zarephath Health.

Thank you so much, Nathan It is good to know. It's good to hear.

Yes. Thanks again for joining me on the Tech Glow Up.

Thank you so much.

Oh, you know what, Dr. Chigozie, there's one question, that I totally forgot to ask. if people wanna learn more about the work that you're doing or want to help with, talk about a partnership, what's the way that people can learn more about your work?

Okay, we have a website, www.zarephathhealth.com, can email me directly, Dr. Michael. DrMichael@ZarephathHealth.com.

Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes for sure.

Yes.

Well, Dr. Chigozie Michael, it's been such a pleasure to talk with you. thanks for joining me on the Tech Glow Up.

Thank you so much to Nathan. It's wonderful to be here.

Awesome. Today I'm talking with Claire Dixon, another one of our Health Tech Impact Showdown Pitch winners. Claire, it is such a pleasure to meet you. thanks for joining me on the Tech Glow Up.

Thanks for having me. It's awesome to meet you too, Nathan.

Well, let's get into it. could you introduce yourself and the work that you do at, Neuraura?

So I'm Claire Dixon, CEO, and co-founder of Neuraura. Our solution LoOoP is tackling PCOS polycystic ovary syndrome. So it's a women's health condition. It affects one in five individuals assigned female at birth and. As well as being the number one cause of infertility, it's actually a significant risk factor in almost all health related killers of women. So we're building the first new option in almost 70 years. our platform combines a bioelectronic, which alleviates the metabolic and hormonal symptoms of the condition, and then we put that together with a digital platform with the goal of helping close gaps in information, diagnosis, and care.

you made a very bold claim that I'm curious to learn more on. can you talk a little bit, about this connection between PCOS and, these mortal challenges that women face in healthcare?

Yeah, so traditionally PCOS was treated like a reproductive disorder. and it is, it is the leading cause of infertility. It's responsible for about 70% of cases of anovulation, so failure to ovulate. but that has completely overlooked. All of the other sides of the condition. so about 95% of people who have PCOS who are overweight have insulin resistance, about 75% of those who are lean. And so when you follow that through in terms of cardiometabolic risk factors, brain health risk factors, there's also things like, gut dysbiosis and inflammation, which is core to the conditions. You've got autoimmune conditions. You know, basically, you know, what do we, what do we hear today, right? Maternal health crisis, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and then certain types of cancers as well. And so PCOS is a risk factor for all of that. So yeah, we wanna raise awareness, obviously, as, as well as providing people with different options.

Amazing. And the, for the Health Tech Impact Showdown you were talking about and pitching your new LoOoP product. Right.

Yeah.

can you introduce us to that solution and what you were talking about, in the show?

Yeah. so there's two sides to the platform. So one is a device, which uses, it's a. By electronics. So it uses low frequency electro stim. Basically she's proven that this. Specific stimulation protocol helps with the metabolic symptoms. So it brings down that insulin resistance and also some of the hormonal symptoms. So it does things like improve your menstrual regularity. and then to go alongside that, recognizing that there's huge issues. There's like a 70% diagnostic gap in this space. we're putting together a digital platform and so, un unlike others, we're, we're really trying to. give people the tools so that they can better advocate for themselves, better understand this chronic condition for themselves. Become, become experts themselves, right? So they can access the standard of care, that already exists. so things like, tracking symptoms, but using clinically validated scales, right? So a doctor can then make sense of the data that, if an individual wishes to share that. so that's, that's the solution.

Amazing. And the, electronic stimulation is, is that happening like in the abdomen? Is it body specific?

Yeah. So the research was done on like multiple traditional acupuncture sites. But, we've already done, kind of informal, preliminary human studies and we're just kicking off our pilot formal clinical study. yet it's like a patch that you'll wear on the lower abdomen. the protocol for the PCOS is three times a week for 30 to 60 minutes. and yeah, it, it works, over time, but you start to see kind of some of those latent effects when you use it over, over a few weeks.

I'm, the, the different areas that, that level of, of stimulation and engagement into the, the different parts of the body systems is, absolutely fascinating. Claire, it seems like you've been building a lot and you have, you've already mentioned a few things, that are in your roadmap and that you're working on upcoming. Talk a little bit about the Glow Up that you're working on, at Neuraura or, with LoOoP. Right. A Glow Up is a notable transformation. sometimes it's a rebirth, but maybe not this early. in an idea, what are the big six month goals, the big audacious, six month goals that you're working on,

Yeah.

at Neuraura and with the LoOoP project.

Yeah, so, so that pilot is definitely one of them, and that's really kind of what we see is unlocking the next round of funding so that we can obviously get, get that device, through the FDA and into market. on the other side, we have a prototype like beta, our app out there, and in the next few weeks we'll be adding that journaling functionality and also our AI chatbot. So, you know, we have. You know, hundreds, thousands of pages of content, right?'cause we're big on, science back content. And so our chat bot will then turn that into a conversational tool so that people can ask questions, and, and get reliable answers.'cause I think that's what we all want when we're dealing with a serious health condition.

Amazing. I, I love that sort of staged approach, right? getting approval, FDA approval for. device, can often have, you know, many rounds of review and testing and right. You need that data. And so being able to leverage this research, this body of work, all of this data that you already have, that's driving the tech side and using AI to then, you know, empower patients now, seems

Hmm.

a lovely use. of, of, of this data set that you have, both now and in the future application. very gorgeous. Amazing. Claire. I got really excited, Claire. I love to. I love to ask. All right. The, the road of innovation is never a straight one and usually requires, some well timed advice at least once or twice. I'm, I'm super curious. What's the best advice that you've got on your entrepreneurial journey? whether it's technology, the clinical side patients, or, or otherwise.

I was thinking about this and, I feel guilty'cause I can't remember, I'm sure it was one of our early investors that gave us this one, but it's really been part of our. mantra. you know, when we bring on new team members, when we talk about how we do things, when we kind of have to kind of pull ourselves up, right? When things don't go according to plan. and that really is, there's two ways to win and only one way to fail, right? So if you lose and you learn, that's still a win. Right. So, you know, what we're doing is hard, right? Like, it is a complex condition. We're in a tough space. We're doing hardware, we're doing neuromodulation. You know, there, there's many things we have to learn on that journey. And so the best way to learn is to make mistakes. Right to try things. and I think that's kind of been just like such a part of our culture and I think from a personal standpoint, you know, this, it's tough being a founder sometimes. so I think kind of just taking that as well, right into your life. Right? Life life happens for you, not to you, right? Like, you know, just viewing as much as you can, the kind of bumps and, and diversions along the way as. That's the point, right? Like that's the good stuff. That's the meat and, and that's kind of, you know, to see it for what it is.

Oh, I love it. the bumps along the way, the journey along the way is what makes, this innovation game worth it, right? And how quickly you can learn. And enjoy and absorb every inch, of that path, is, is really, really one of the big challenges and delights.

Yep.

Claire, it's been so lovely getting to know the work that you're doing.

Yeah.

I am curious if people wanna learn more, if they want to be a part of early testing. how can people get

Yeah.

and, get in contact with you?

Yeah, for sure. so if you wanna learn more about product and try out the beta app, it's getLoOoP.com with three o's. You know, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty prolific there. and I also have a substack where we share some of those deep dive articles, right? If this is a topic you're interested in, then, then find us over on Substack as well.

Claire Dixon, co-founder. And CEO of Neuraura, announcing their New LoOoP as a winner at the Health Tech Impact Showdown. congrats on the win and I good luck on building over these next six months. I

Yeah.

you'll keep us in touch.

Yeah. Thanks so much. Nathan is lovely to meet you. Thanks for giving me a boost on a Monday morning too.

Awesome. you. This is another special installment of our series celebrating the winners of the Health Tech Impact Showdown, and today I've got Alex Koshykov, CEO, and co-founder of YODD.

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Nathan, and I'm really honored to win this award and happy to talk more about it.

Amazing. Could you introduce yourself and the award-winning work that you're doing at.

I've been in health tech for probably the past 15 years. I've been building mostly tech solutions, for. kind arts, startups and organizations, mostly healthcare and wellness. anything starting from mobile apps for patient with specific diseases, clinical trial platforms, telehealth solutions, and many, many other things. after we. Micro cofounder and I, we created this tech consultancy firm nine years ago. We thought that we learned so much from startup founders that we worked with. So instead of just building only tech solutions for others, we thought it's about time for us to build some tech solutions ourselves and try to avoid all the mistakes that other startups did. obviously we failed on that. I think we're making even more mistakes than any other startup is doing. so that's, that's an interesting experience. So, yeah. one of the spinoffs of this company, of the tech consultancy company is our medical device startup called Yad, your Online Doctor Diagnostics, which is a hardware medical device, multimodal device that consists of stethoscope, auto scope, andr monitor pulses, overview camera, and EKG. And we're all also working on blood pressure as well. So trying to measure all, important vitals and biomarkers during telehealth visits. And the last thing I'd add for, for my short intro, I'm also co-founded, one of the largest digital health communities, in the world now. It's called Health Tech. It's a series of digital health events. We're now in 12 cities in the US and I think seven cities or eight cities outside of the US and the, the community's grown. fast, probably faster than I expected, which, which is super exciting. we love to bring innovators in the same room, share experience, share knowledge, and hopefully make some meaningful connections in this space.

I talk to a lot of innovators with interesting origin stories on the show, and you're one of the first like developer to product, make, you know, product founder that I, I've met, and that journey. Is, so lovely. I, I love the humility in, in stating that you thought you might be able to get around all of the, the learnings that you'll say that an early startup faces and yet, maybe found yourself in more learnings just by nature of, your background and the way that you approach problems. let's talk about Yad a little bit and the, award-winning pitch that you just had. can you, can you break it down for us and why, Yad stands out, why you chose to go this, telehealth diagnostic direction?

I think the, the name of the word is Health Impact Award. And we build this, device specifically to bring impact, not just in the US but all over the world. I do think there is a huge, gap of especially remotely. it's surprisingly how telehealth got ba basically back to numbers that we had pre pandemic. In terms of usage, I would, I would expect, and most of people would expect, is gonna go up by a lot, but now it seems like we're still around like five to 10% of usage of telehealth solutions. And we've conducted hundreds of interviews with patients asking like, why don't you use telehealth? Especially after you experienced it during the pandemic. And number one reason is the lack of data. People think that doctors would not be. to diagnose you without any information. Basically, all the information doctor gets is what you tell as a patient. Well, you tell a doctor and yeah, it's not like patients lying, but. Most of us don't have medical background, like you don't know how well to explain your cough or other symptoms. So that's the reason why we created this solution, to bring that data to doctors, to virtual visits so doctors can actually real time. Listen to your lung, listen to your heart, check your ears, no throat measure pulse temperature saturation, and EKGM blood pressure soon. So this is the main purpose of it, and we do think there is a lot of demand on the market. Like I said, all over the world, especially rural health, I'm sure you know how rural health is struggling in the us Lots of health systems are shutting down and it's, it's, it's really a problem because people, especially in those areas, it takes'em two, three hours to get to the hospital and many times people wait till the last minute to do that because yeah, like I, I don't want to. And sometimes unfortunately, it's even too late. So that's why we want to bring that data real time, and you don't need to drive somewhere three hours to get that consultation. And as a person who got to ER unfortunately seven times for the past three years in the US either for myself or my family, or for my friends or my, my host FA family, it's, I'm, I can tell you it's, it's very time consuming. time we went to ER it was at least five hours of time, pretty much the whole day. And four out of those seven consultation could be easily replaced with telehealth, with my device, not just regular telehealth. So that's, that's the whole mission of our company and we are hoping to improve those numbers and bring to patients home, which is a new trend right now. It's, it's kind of ironic that we're back to home health after so many years where everything started.

I have to ask, how does, what's the model for how people, access these sensors and data from the home? Are we, are you mailing things out before an appointment? Is this a kit that people have in their house all the time? Is it connected with cell phones? Can, gimme a little more picture into how, Yad works.

you as a patient need to have the device at home all the time. Obviously, if you get sick and you don't have the device at home, you don't wanna wait for, I know, two or three days for delivery to, to bring it to a home. So we are thinking that like all of us have therm monitored home. I think that all of us should have some, not necessarily maybe even my device, but I would hope that, but it should have got at home. And whenever somebody in the household gets sick, you call a family doctor, connect the device, to your phone and have a virtual con conversation real time with the doctor. the second part of the question, which is an important one, how do we get the device to patient's home? if we're talking about the US specifically, because it's very different from other, for other countries. There is no really B2C market in this space. Like even if I start selling my devices on Best Buy or CVS, patient buys it and then calls his or her family doctor, and the doctor's like, I have no idea what this is. It's not integrated to any of my hr, so I cannot really use that. So there is no way we can go directly to consumer. So we are B two, B2C company. we are gonna work either with direct primary care companies or concierge medicine. Obviously working with rural health systems as well. And pediatrics is another, our target audience for sure. And. When we talk to them, they actually have different approaches how to solve the issue. Somebody's gonna send us that kit without device directly to patient's home and not charge for it. Somebody would actually charge for it. The good thing for me, I'm sort of outsourcing that decision to our partners on the B2B side instead of just figuring out all the mailing, issues myself.

I like literally right before this conversation, I was scrolling LinkedIn and a friend of mine posted. About being stuck at the emergency department and was reflecting about right. How often, we have these connections with our primary care. We have these opportunities to like check in and get support before it's so urgent or even an emergency. And, especially for these communities where travel to, you know, an emergency department or a care center might be two to three hours. wow. think about the time savings and, the, the sort of reinforcement of like why you'd want to be in better contact with primary care rather than just waiting, for those Right. several moments that, those very long appointments.

But it, it's, it's,

Oh my.

right, but it's also a cost saving for payers because

Alright.

ER visits is expensive. Readmissions even more expensive. So payers don't want people to be in the ER all the time. And we don't want that. We want payers. To pay for that as well. So that's why I think, I do still have my Ukrainian doctor back home, and we do have regular consultations with my device, with the doctor.

Oh, I love that. So Alex. You've got some, you've got some great foundations. You've got an award celebrating the impact that you're working toward. Let's talk about the Glow Up, the transformation, or let's just call it, you know, audacious six month goals that you're working on, for yard. what's the rest of this year look like for you?

Number one and most important, task on our roadmap is FDA clearance. without FDA in this country, obviously I won't be able to enter the market. So this is and fundraising right now. Hopefully, close around soon and use most of them, funds to go through fd. so once we're done with that, then I'm good to go and start selling there. Lots of people interested in this device. Lots of companies, and I already talked to a bunch of them, so most of them say, yeah, go get FDA and we can talk about our first country potential. So this is, this is our next big thing for sure. But, to, to, to the point talking about myself as a founder, I think my, my personal goal is focus for the next few months. you said in the beginning, I am involved in many different things, and sometimes it distracts you from the main goal. So I do think I, I need to focus more on the startup if I wanna bring this to market as soon as possible.

I always try to make the tech Glow Up about sharing, actionable advice that people can. learn from those who have done it before them. And this idea of when you really want something to take off, when it's time to go, even if you have lots of good ideas, taking a minute to really focus on the one that's most important, most urgent. Alex, I'm having such a good time. We're gonna have to stay in touch because, I wanna know more about all these things that you're up to. but before we, but I need to move on in the questions and so I wanna know, as somebody who's seen a lot of different. Innovators, on their journey, who's been that technical support to help people get over the line. And now as somebody who's decided it was time to wear that entrepreneur's hat themselves, what's the most important piece of, advice that you've gotten on your entrepreneurial journey, that's helped you get to where you are today?

The tough, because it's hard to select just one. and actually on my, one of my podcasts, which is called, my channel called Health Tech, this is like the, the question I ask to my guests as well, what kinda advice they can give to startup founders. So I'm gonna, if you don't mind, I'm still gonna say two. one is, Be prepared for a marathon, not a sprint. In healthcare, nothing goes really fast. sales cycles along, pilots along. Like if you're here with your solution and you're planning to the next, by the end of this year, you're probably in the wrong game. So yeah, be prepared for, for marathon. and the second one, I think right now it's, it's, it makes a lot of sense to mention that as a person who is on the tech side. There's definitely lots of great things happening with ai, cloud code Codex, cursor, amazing tools, but people, I think overestimate those, especially for in healthcare. They think they can wipe code their solution like in two days and bring it to market. in healthcare is, is not how it works. You still need to think about security from day one and those solutions are not ready to build those solutions the, the way, how it's supposed to be to pass HIPA compliance and many other audits. So yes, building and using webco solutions is great, is fun. I'd recommend if you wanna build something in this space, be aware that there are some guardrails needs to be in place, and by, by coating is great, but it not can, it cannot create the final product for you. You, you still need to build it according to all the in the space.

especially like in healthcare and protected industry, right? Having a proof of concept, having like a prototype and MVP is often that first step to funding, and I love vibe coating for that particular moment. I think you also have to be very, very real. And there's, there's a startup in my, my coworking space here at the Upstart Collective who's facing this exact thing. They got their MVP built on their own, and now they have to refactor the whole thing, and that is part of that, that tech investment. they got their very quickly and now they need to take the time to do it again. if people wanna learn more about all of the fantastic work that you're doing, whether it's at Yad or as a a technical consultant, how can they follow up and learn more?

Sure. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, so it's s Alex Koko. You can find me pretty easily. and also, our tech consultancy website is bki.io and the YA'S website is YA Health. So pretty easy. So if, if you wanna see a demo or check out our device, shoot us know. I would happy to, happy to get back to you as soon as possible.

Alex Koshykov making rural healthcare and remote healthcare more effective, more efficient, and keeping people. Out of unnecessary visits to the ER while possibly transfer more, transforming three or four other, problem areas within the health tech ecosystem. Alex, I love that you, that we barely touched on your suppress success as a community founder. I found that. Especially when the topic and the tone is right, in places like health tech, there's a so much pent up demand. I can't wait to talk more about that on a future episode. congrats again on your win for the Health Tech Impact Showdown and, I can't wait to learn more.

Thank you so much, Nathan.

Amazing, awesome. Hello and welcome to another special installment of the Health Tech Impact Showdown Winners. On the tech Glow Up Today. I'm talking with Tayaru Bayyana of SereniCare AI so great to meet you. Thanks for joining me today.

Thank you, Nathan, for having me on this, show.

Amazing. you were getting into a little bit of the background as we were started rolling. But, to get us started, could you introduce yourself and the work that you do at SereniCare AI?

Hi, Nathan. I'm Tayaru Bayyana. I'm the CEO, CTO and founder of SereniCare AI We are like, Digital health startup focused on helping patients, caregivers navigate through the journey very empathetically and very patient centric. The reason I'm doing this is I had to support my dad, through his stage four cancer journey As a problem solver, I could not solve the problem effectively. That hit me really hard, and I don't want that experience shared for other caregivers and patients. So how can we help everyone in the equation through the technology and engineering brain I have is how SereniCare AI is born.

Oh, Wow. Can you, I'll hearing that story a second time, just stop me in my tracks. Thank you for that. Tayaru could you, since you have an award-winning pitch that you just honed on the Health Tech Impact Showdown, could you share your pitch with us?

As I mentioned it, the company is born through my personal experience and journey and, I, I did interview many clinicians, providers, nurse practitioners who are in the and of like mostly the chronic illness care journey. Everything I experienced. Has been reiterated by the 50 to 70 interviews I had with all the professionals. and there is a huge gap and there is a huge need, to help patients make decisions. Not reactive, more responsive. There is so much data, which is telling the right story, which can help patients and caregivers make the right decisions in their journey. why don't we use the data to help the patients? Was the question, why are we making guesswork? Why are we doing this instead of that? That's exactly what SereniCare AI is here for. Yeah, so this is more to make the journey coordinated, proactive rather than reactive for patients and caregivers at, in broader strokes, this will help save patients lot of emotional stress, improve patient outcomes overall cost. Which in turn result in less provider burnout in the stressful moments. So our aim is to save costs for patients, time for providers overall, it's a win-win situation for provider, payer and patient. The portal serves all the personas.

What I'm hearing from you echo something that I hear from both patients that I support in my life and a, a number of like the clinical leaders, that I've been talking to at health events like VIVE and HLTH recently, right? We have the data we can be making smarter choices. Why, why in today's world of Sam Altman's, you know, ai, everything, can't we get a little bit more proactive, a little bit more personal, a little bit less reactive, for everyone involved? So on the show we talk about Glow Up as a way to get into your goals for the short term, say six months as, as a recent, showdown winner, and somebody who is, is building a company. what is your, what is your six month goals? What are, what, what's the big, milestones you're looking to hit in the next few quarters?

Yeah, the biggest milestone I want to hit, is to prove the patient outcome improvements, through the platform. we can achieve this through a pilot with a hospital system, which is. Small, nimble, and work hand in hand at with the pace we are moving at, once we prove the outpatient outcomes. Once the learning is done, we close the LoOops. It's, it'll be like, my vision is to reach a hundred thousand patients, in the next, one year. So the system is built. Patients can enter the symptoms. Providers can see the risk scores. They can collaboratively, human centrically make decisions. If needed, we will bring in the therapist into the picture who can help this navigation journey in a more, human-centric way. so all the pieces are coming in really well together.

partnering on a pilot to get real data and to show how this is making, a big difference for patients is amazing. We talked about how we have the data, why aren't we making decisions about it? I love this idea that you hinted at, and we, probably don't have time to get into, but this, that, patients can be logging and, you know, Working through their side of the equation, and that there are these touch points where patients and doctors, can review the same notes and work more collaboratively. So, Tayaru I, one of the questions that I just love to ask, innovators and entrepreneurs is what's the most important piece of advice? you've gotten on your journey, either from like a mentor, a coach, somebody that you admire, what's the, what's the best piece of advice you've gotten so far on this journey?

Yeah. fail fast, learn quickly, grow every day, every minute, every second. Yes. That's like the, the golden, tip I got. because time is money. The, the decision making gets delayed and it feeds back into the company and that delays the traction. So yeah, learn fast, quickly, make decisions, and, grow day in, day out. That's what I encourage my, every one of my team members.

How do you personally ensure that as a leader, as somebody who is, you know, pulling all these levers within the company, how do you make sure, that you stay focused, on that growth and learning every day?

I am a learner by doing. So for example, I am doing the in-person, interactions with C levels. For a pilot launch. the, the thing that's, that's, I come from a corporate world. I never did this. Every interaction is a learning, for me and for the company. I, I talk to everyone with open mind. What is the feedback they're giving, what I can learn, what the company can learn, and how we improve day and day out before we have the next conversation. So.

Oh, warms my heart. one of my most common pieces of advice is, right, like if you have a. A question, go ask your customer. And that, like the C-E-O-C-T-O is out there leading in the trenches. right. And it doesn't sound like it's, one of those, like, task heavy has to be involved with everything. But like, I need to understand these core partners, these people who are going to move our vision and right. Modeling that for the whole team. Amazing. I'm so glad I asked the follow up, we're basically at time, so how can people follow up with you and learn more if they wanna learn, more about what you're doing at SereniCare AI.

Yeah. I am on LinkedIn. Anyone who would like to see a demo of the application, please reach out to me. I will set aside time on my calendar. I would love to show what we have at this point.

Well, thank you so much for joining me today on the Special health Tech Impact Showdown Award winner series. It's such a pleasure to get to meet you and the work that you're doing at SereniCare AI. Congratulations again.

Thank you so much, Nathan, for giving me this opportunity. I'm humbled to be on the show.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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