“I by no means began out eager to win 23 Grand Slams. I needed to win the US Open, after which I made that scalable,” joked Serena Williams, managing associate of funding agency Serena Ventures, at SXSW.
Usually, panels made up of enterprise capitalists give attention to income and returns on funding. However with tennis legend Serena Williams as Reckitt Catalyst’s entrepreneur-in-residence, the dialog centered on how funding tech startups might drive tangible group influence.
One other panelist included Mika Eddy, the co-founder of Malama Well being, a community-based telehealth firm that connects pregnant folks with native doulas and remote-monitoring tech to assist them throughout their being pregnant and postpartum. Malama, which implies “care” in Hawaiian, goals to enhance maternal well being outcomes.
Eddy stated she was impressed to construct the corporate after watching her OB-GYN grandmother look after sufferers in rural Japan whereas rising up.
“The US was really not constructed for wholesome outcomes for girls, and notably if you happen to don’t have privilege or a platform, oftentimes these outcomes are left to probability,” stated Eddy. “We constructed Malama so as to assist fill the gaps.”
Additionally on the panel was Kwamane Liddell, an emergency division nurse who based Thrivelink to assist sufferers throughout the nation discover the housing, remedy and different important social service assets. The corporate is concentrated on accessibility — you do not want the web, smartphones or studying expertise to make use of it. For instance, Thrivelink makes use of AI voice tech slightly than counting on textual content, which can be more durable for some sufferers to make use of. Liddell’s uncle, who had a stroke and was a part of the inspiration for Thrivelink.
“Individuals won’t be capable to textual content or kind inside the app, however they will say their tackle,” stated Liddell. “So we constructed a telephonic AI agent that permits folks to speak. Since then, we have helped 1000’s of households entry wholesome meals.”
Well being tech, enterprise capitalism and coverage have an extended, difficult historical past within the US. Well being know-how is usually designed to fill gaps or tackle main points left by the well being care and insurance coverage industries. Massive corporations within the AI revolution, resembling OpenAI, Amazon and Microsoft, are additionally constructing well being AI instruments together with startups like Malama and Thrivelink.
