The Tech Glow Up - Fabulous conversations with innovative minds.

Most climate communication talks at people. It delivers facts, projections, timelines — and wonders why nothing changes. Facts land in the head, not the gut. Immersive media like XR, AR, VR changes that. When you're standing inside a story, it stops being abstract. You feel it. That's the conviction behind Agog, the Immersive Media Institute, and why co-founder Chip Giller believes XR is one of the most important tools the climate movement hasn't fully picked up yet.Chip didn't arrive here in a straight line. He founded Grist.org in the late 1990s — one of the first digital-only nonprofit news organizations — chasing every new platform: desktop publishing, the web, podcasting before it had a name, video, social. Around 2014–2015, he put on an Oculus DK1. "This is f@cking amazing — this feeling of presence." During COVID he spent time in AltspaceVR and VRChat with people from India, Brazil, and beyond; and saw that XR shows not just what is, but what was and what could be. He co-founded Agog with Wendy Schmidt to build the field that could make that vision real.Key Moments:[00:08:15] The climate communication gap: why facts don't move people — and why XR does[00:21:40] Grist to Agog: chasing platforms for 25 years and what the DK1 moment revealed[00:35:10] Field building: why Agog moved beyond grants to train creators and activate cultural institutions[00:48:55] "Postcards from Our Climate Resilient Future": AR at Portland bus stops bringing Metro's climate plans to life[01:02:30] Open call: $1 million for immersive climate storytelling and what judges are looking forAgog has distributed $6.5 million in grants in its first two years. Now there's an open call for $1 million in new funding — not for the flashiest tech, but where immersive genuinely adds value. The 15-person team is growing, the peer-reviewed Immersive Impact Review is underway, and Chip's philosophy says it all: building toward "a future that doesn't suck."Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/igFUkSJ36IUAbout Chip GillerChip Giller is the executive director and a co-founder of Agog. He has been a visionary in the climate space and media field for 30 years, leading creative storytelling teams and partnering with nonprofits, philanthropists, and other leaders to accelerate progress to a better, more just world. In 2024, Chip joined forces with Wendy Schmidt to launch Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, bringing their shared passion for innovation and social change to the forefront of the immersive media landscape. Agog helps people use emerging media like XR to imagine and build better futures.In 1999, Chip founded one of the first digital news organizations and first nonprofit newsrooms, Grist, to engage the next generation on climate change and other environmental issues. Grist reaches millions and has been recognized in many ways for its impact, including as a recipient of the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. In 2017, Chip launched Grist’s solutions lab to identify, celebrate, and connect a diverse array of climate solutions leaders, collectively known as the Grist 50; and to tell unexpected stories in creative new formats about justice and progress. Among other honors, Chip has received a Heinz Award and been named a TIME “Hero of the Environment.” Follow Chip on Threads and LinkedIn.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

6/11/26 • 38:03

What does it take to stay committed to a vision when the technology is still developing? Russell Patton has been inside Snap working on camera glasses and AR smartglasses for over a decade. He's a Staff Product Manager on Snap Spectacles, and we recorded this episode at Snap's Spectacles Developer Bootcamp in Santa Monica, where 50 of the world's top lens creators gathered to advance the path toward wearable AR.Russell's through-line isn't hype — it's conviction built on evidence. Snap started making camera glasses in 2016 — not because the product was perfect, but because each generation taught the team something new about comfort, efficiency, and treating privacy as a first-class design principle. When Evan Spiegel said around 2019 that consumer AR glasses were probably a decade away, skeptics balked. But that call came from a deep understanding of what the technology actually required.[00:01:39] Snap's AR vision: The challenge was never the idea — it was getting the technology to catch up, and what camera glasses since 2016 taught the team about the path forward.[00:04:01] Developers vs. consumers: Developers onboard themselves — but consumers need a working content ecosystem on day one and an experience that meets them where they are.[00:07:40] Spatial UX onboarding: Moving closer to content scales it, content stays anchored in 3D space — intuitive by nature, but people trained on flat screens need to rediscover that mode of thinking.[00:09:23] Specs 2024 in detail: Large field of view, electronic tint, 6DoF tracking, hand tracking, voice input, split computing architecture, and vapor chambers in each temple for thermal management.[00:17:27] Vision and conviction: "If the journey was easy, I think it's likely that the innovation would've already happened." On arriving at the right destination, even if it takes time.AR glasses aren't a gadget — they're a new computing paradigm, a canvas for experiences that don't exist yet. The most common reason developers give for their excitement says it best: get the screen out of the way so we can be in the real world more.Watch on YouTube and subscribe so you never miss an episode of The Tech Glow Up. https://youtu.be/dUkxBmpL2uwJoin the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancA "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

6/4/26 • 27:09

Every health tech founder wants to change the system. But Warren Templeton, Managing Director at Health2047, will tell you that without financial sustainability, the mission dies on the vine. "No mission without margin" isn't a compromise — it's a precondition. In a sector where impact is measured in lives and dollars at the same time, Warren argues that founders who can't do the math on their own business model are the ones who don't make it.Health2047 is a venture studio backed by the American Medical Association — and that structure matters. Warren and his team don't just write checks. They build business capability around pre-seed and seed founders, then deploy capital through whatever vehicle fits the situation, debt or equity. The name 2047 is deliberate: the 200-year anniversary of the AMA's founding. The portfolio spans chronic disease management, data liquidity, and physician productivity, with companies like Phenomix Health, Moneta, ScholarRx, and Zing Health. Warren also wants every Health2047 startup to openly document their data's biases and limitations — because training on non-representative data doesn't fix the problem, it compounds it.Key Moments:[00:03:34] How Health2047 partners with founders — beyond the check[00:06:05] The "no mission without margin" thesis and what it really means[00:12:16] What healthcare transformation actually looks like (hint: it's not blowing things up)[00:24:58] The open data future Warren wants to see — and why it's already starting[00:26:37] The women's health investment gap and the Health of Women thesisWarren's framework for founders is deceptively simple: price times quantity. Healthcare has finite patient populations, limited physician counts, and real unit economics. Knowing your P×Q math tells you what kind of investor you need and whether your business model can actually survive.Subscribe to The Tech Glow Up for more conversations with the leaders driving healthcare forward.Watch the full conversation on YouTube → https://youtu.be/NYYc_a2k63wJoin the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Warren Templeton:Warren Templeton is a Managing Director at Health2047, the venture studio backed by the American Medical Association. In this role, Warren works with founders and entrepreneurs on product formation and refinement through to go-to-market execution. Warren brings strong analytical and deep technical skills, possessing significant capabilities in both enterprise and consumer-focused product development. Warren sits on the board of RecoverX, a Health2047 portfolio company. Previously, Warren co-founded a marketing content creation platform, Zigna, and served as COO. He worked at Fitbit on growth strategies via M&A. Warren began his career building trading technology for Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley, where he last held the title of VP. Warren holds a BSc in Computer Science and Management from the University of St. Andrews and an MBA from Darden School of Business at University of Virginia.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

5/28/26 • 39:13

We train our bodies. We track our steps, our sleep, our resting heart rate. But when it comes to mental wellness — the skills that help people regulate, process, and recover — most people never learn them until something breaks. The tools exist. Cognitive behavioral therapy has 50 years of evidence behind it. And those tools work just as well before a crisis as after. Almost nobody knows that.Leah Blain is a licensed clinical psychologist and Chief Clinical Officer at Chimney Trail Health. Her conviction is simple: get evidence-based mental wellness tools to people upstream — before a problem starts, not after it requires treatment. That means translating decades of validated CBT research into something accessible. Something that fits in a cargo pocket. Chimney Trail's flagship offering is a workbook that looks like a fun magazine — small quizzes, thought records, digestible content, designed specifically to fit in a military uniform pocket. Sometimes meeting people where they are is the whole innovation.What we cover in this episode:[00:00] Nathan and Leah introduce Chimney Trail Health and the primary prevention model[04:36] How Chimney Trail builds ROI through outcomes, not just access — B2B and B2G engagement strategy[05:59] The pocket workbook: why a physical, cargo-pocket-sized magazine beat a digital app for military users[15:57] Mission as the decision yardstick: how Chimney Trail evaluates what to add and what to leave out[24:38] Chimney Trail's recent glow up — a lethal means security curriculum and a large-scale Air Force pilotLeah also talks about the incentive problem in healthcare, why prevention is invisible when it works, and what it would look like to give mental wellness the same cultural weight as physical fitness. Her ask for the field: stop treating mental health as a marker of brokenness and start treating it as a performance edge everyone already has and can train.Catch the full episode where you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube —https://youtu.be/vuNTy5lIR6I.Join the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Leah BlainDr. Leah Blain is a licensed clinical psychologist, a Beck Institute-certified cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, and Chief Clinical Officer for Chimney Trail Health. She spent the last decade building and running cutting edge behavioral health clinics; most recently at the University of Pennsylvania, where she launched a specialized cognitive behavioral therapy program for veterans and military family members.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

5/21/26 • 40:59

Meet the HealthTech Impact Award Winners. Five innovators with five real, personal inspirations that keep them focussed and building. Ellyn Ito co-founded InnerStill after her 15-year-old son became suicidal during the pandemic. Every avenue they tried fell short. That search led to MindVybe — a patented wearable neuromodulation device using vagus nerve stimulation and acupressure point regulation for stress, poor sleep, brain fog, agitation, and lack of focus. No side effects, no overuse risk. MindVybe has 5,000 users in clinical studies, three state innovation grants, and is on the FDA 510k pathway.Claire Dixon is building LoOop for the millions living with PCOS — polycystic ovary syndrome — a painful, chronically underfunded condition. LoOop is an abdominal patch combining electronic stimulation with a full care platform: knowledge base, personal journaling, and an AI chat assistant. Claire's philosophy: "There are two ways to win and only one way to fail — if you lose and you learn, that's still a win." Life happens for you, not to you.Dr. Chigozie Michael Nwalozie built Zarephath Health on one conviction: execution matters more than ideas. His team created non-invasive, urine-based diagnostic tests for HPV, STDs, and other markers — results in 10 minutes — scaling across 16 countries in Africa around three pillars: screening, accessible diagnosis, and treatment. His message is clear: HPV does not respect nationality, race, wealth, or title. This is a global problem.Alex Koshykov asked why telehealth fell back to pre-pandemic levels after COVID. The answer: patients can't describe symptoms in clinical terms, and doctors can't diagnose without information. YODD is a multimodal remote diagnostic device giving doctors real-time data — lung and heart sounds, ears, throat, oxygen saturation, pulse, EKG, blood pressure — during a telehealth call. Built for rural patients who travel two to three hours to reach a hospital.Tayaru Bayyana's father went through a stage four cancer journey. A problem solver by nature, she could not solve it. "That hit me really hard." SereniCare AI is a proactive decision platform for cancer patients and caregivers, built to turn existing data into timely guidance — designed so no one in that circle makes decisions in the dark. Validated through 50 to 70 interviews with clinicians and nurse practitioners.Timestamps:[00:00:00] Introduction — The HealthTech Impact Showdown[00:05:00] Ellyn Ito — InnerStill / MindVybe[00:20:00] Claire Dixon — Neuraura / LoOop[00:35:00] Dr. Chigozie Michael Nwalozie — Zarephath Health[00:50:00] Alex Koshykov — YODD[01:05:00] Tayaru Bayyana — SereniCare AIFive founders. Five moments where something happened and they chose to build. This episode is a celebration of that choice.Watch the full conversation on YouTube →https://youtu.be/4FeCDubNO-8Join the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancA "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

5/20/26 • 66:42

Most vehicle research happens in ideal conditions — short commutes, familiar routes, full battery. Katie Tucker wanted to know what happens when the conditions aren't ideal. As Global Customer Research and CX Insights Manager at General Motors, she led a study that sent 40 Blazer EVs and more than 80 drivers on cross-country road trips to find out what customers actually need when the stakes are high and the variables are real. What they uncovered reshaped how the team thinks about EV onboarding, range anxiety, and the critical first 60 to 90 days of vehicle ownership.Katie's approach sits at the intersection of qualitative and quantitative research. Neither method alone tells the full story. Real-world behavior, customer emotion, and product data have to move together if you want insights that hold up when a product team is making decisions with a five-year roadmap on the line. She's also watching closely how AI is changing what her team can do — and where human judgment still has to lead.Key moments in this conversation:[00:03:54] How an architecture background led to a career in design thinking and CX research[00:07:40] What the cross-country EV road trip study revealed that lab research never could[00:09:25] Blending qualitative and quantitative data to surface actionable insights[00:12:58] Why cross-functional collaboration is how good ideas survive long enough to ship[00:21:31] How AI is changing the research workflow — and what it still can't replaceKatie has spent her career moving between boutique consulting and large enterprise environments, and the throughline has always been the same: technology is only valuable if it serves the humans who use it. That conviction shapes every study, every research question, and every recommendation she brings to a product team — and it's why her work has impact well beyond the research report itself.Watch the full conversation on YouTube → https://youtu.be/BSOwimnRiq4Join the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Katie TuckerKatie Tucker is a customer-obsessed product and CX leader at General Motors, where she designs customer-focused operating models that connect emerging technology, vehicle experiences, and portfolio decisions across functions. Her career spans founding a boutique innovation consultancy, growing a business innovation practice at Daimler Trucks North America, and now shaping GM’s EV and software-defined vehicle journeys through CX governance, journey mapping, and AI-augmented insights. With graduate degrees in both architecture and business, she works at the intersection of systems thinking and human-centered design, helping teams turn messy real-world signals into clear strategy and execution. On The Tech Glow Up, Katie shares how resilience, thoughtful experimentation, and a deep focus on customer adoption can turn bold ideas into durable value for founders, product leaders, and the customers they serve.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

5/14/26 • 35:46

Most technology implementations in healthcare fail in the same place: the moment after go-live, when clinicians are supposed to just know how to use the system. Dr. Stephanie Lahr, Chief Medical Officer at uPerform, spent years watching that happen from the inside — as a physician, as a CIO, as a CMIO — before deciding to fix it.uPerform is a just-in-time learning platform built for health systems. When a nurse forgets how to document a medication, when a physician can't remember how to write a specific order, when a revenue cycle team member needs to get a bill out the door — uPerform surfaces the answer directly inside the workflow, without breaking it. No separate training system. No waiting for a trainer. Just the information you need, in the moment you need it, embedded in whatever EHR or ERP the organization already uses. And the next chapter: that same on-demand intelligence expanding beyond EHR how-to into the broader landscape of information clinicians need at their fingertips in real time.Stephanie's Glow Up for healthcare in 2026 isn't another technology announcement. It's a shift in focus: from building more systems to helping people actually use the ones they have. We don't have an innovation challenge. We have an overwhelm challenge. Every tech investment should be driving back toward joy, humanity, and presence in the care room — not away from it.Key Moments:[00:02:14] What just-in-time learning actually means and who uPerform is built for[00:06:09] From physician to CIO to vendor: how the doctor-informaticist path happened one decision at a time[00:09:13] The 2026 Glow Up: we don't have an innovation problem, we have an overwhelm problem[00:12:01] uPerform's next chapter: on-demand learning expanding beyond EHR training[00:18:20] Responsible AI today: workflow tools are ready, predictive AI still needs cleaner dataRecorded live from the Vive 2026 event.Catch the full conversation on YouTube → https://youtu.be/0gioHYjYJvQJoin the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Stephanie LahrStephanie Lahr, MD, CHCIO is on a mission to bring joy back to medicine and reduce friction by improving the caregiver’s technology experience. She is an experienced informaticist, change agent and leader in the healthcare industry who has led the clinical aspects, data conversion strategy and the incorporation of multiple Community Connect sites. Dr. Lahr served as the CMIO, and later CIO, of Monument Health where she was first introduced to uPerform as a client. Her passion, expertise and experience is an asset to uPerform as we work together to improve the clinician experience through enhanced health IT education.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

5/11/26 • 21:21

Value-based care has a transparency problem. Payers have their number. Providers have their number. Nobody can agree on what truth is — and that disagreement is quietly costing providers money they should be reinvesting in their communities, their staff, and their patients.Rachael Jones, CEO of Syntax Health, a Lightbeam Health Company, spent 25 years in healthcare — starting in a hospital in Paterson, New Jersey, moving through Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, and multiple software companies — before building Syntax specifically to solve the friction in value-based care contracting. Her platform and services do three things: help organizations understand a contract before they sign it, negotiate with leverage and clarity, and track performance while they're in it so they're not flying blind. Now as part of Lightbeam, Syntax connects that actuarial intelligence layer to Lightbeam's AI-enabled risk analytics, care management, and population health tools.Her metaphor for the Syntax Glow Up: helping clinicians and quality teams understand if the juice is worth the squeeze. Providers work hard. The question is whether the contract is structured to reward that work — or whether you can climb the hill and still not find the pot of gold.Key Moments:[00:02:14] Three things Syntax does better: understand, negotiate, and perform inside a value-based care contract.[00:04:59] Origin story: from Jamaican immigrant to hospital administrator to "the dark side" at Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield.[00:08:12] The abscess tooth in healthcare: change management. "If we don't figure out what change management looks like, nothing you do is going to matter."[00:09:03] The 2026 Glow Up: payer-provider alignment on a shared source of truth for cost, quality, and risk.[00:22:04] Spicy hot take: "AI will not fix healthcare contracting. The math has to math."Recorded live from the Vive 2026 event.Catch the full conversation on YouTube → https://youtu.be/99lwANl1RbUJoin the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Rachael Jones:Rachael Jones is an award-winning healthcare executive, thought leader in advancing Value-Based Care, and self-proclaimed “healthcare analytics nerd” adept in telling stories with data.As a deep Value-Based Care expert, her distinguished career spans over 25 years in senior leadership roles for some of the largest health insurers and healthcare IT solutions providers in the U.S including Cotiviti, Anthem, HealthFirst, and the TriZetto Group.A champion of transformational change, Rachael is passionate about improving the healthcare landscape, with a longstanding history of success in delivering innovative products, performance-enhancing analytics, growth-enabling operational and investment strategies, and cost-of-care controls.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

5/7/26 • 24:18

America's healthcare system has been claiming to put patients first for decades. Miriam Paramore, founder and CEO of RX Utility, has spent 42 years in health IT watching that claim go unmet — and she built her company to fix the part where patients get hurt most: what they pay out of pocket at the pharmacy.The math is stark. Employers pay the negotiated net price on medications after rebates. Consumers with high-deductible health plans pay the full list price. Eliquis: $600 at the counter for a consumer with a $10,000 deductible. The employer's net price after rebates: $300. That cost-shifting has happened quietly for years while payers have kicked the can on price transparency requirements they were legally required to meet in 2022.RX Utility's answer is two APIs: one covering 100% of pharma copay coupons (about $30 billion in annual consumer savings that only 10% of eligible patients ever access), and one with real-time cash prices for every drug at every pharmacy in the country. Not another consumer app, a utility layer that flows through EHRs, pharmacy tools, and telehealth platforms so prices show up wherever patients and clinicians already are. Key Moments:[00:01:36] The mission in one line: "We help people save money on medicine."[00:05:44] $30 billion in pharma copay coupons go unclaimed every year — 90% of patients never access savings they're entitled to.[00:07:12] Real-time cash prices for every drug at every pharmacy, updated throughout the day — now in an API.[00:08:50] The deductible math: $25K family premium plus $10K deductible has broken the insurance model.[00:12:13] Price transparency as the healthcare Glow Up of 2026 — and why payers have been ignoring a 2022 mandate.Recorded live from the Vive 2026 event. Miriam's frame is blunt: if people can't afford the drugs they need, outcomes will be worse. That's not a policy argument. It's arithmetic.Watch the full conversation on YouTube → https://youtu.be/6UNGeWm9KvUAbout Miriam ParamoreMiriam Paramore is Founder and CEO of RxUtility, a real-time medication affordability toolkit. RxUtility is the only company to connect providers, pharmacists, employers, payers and digital health partners with access to all medication prices through its AI-powered platform. By embedding prescription affordability and transparency in these tech workflows, RxUtility reduces patient payment confusion, drives medication adherence and ensures equitable access to prescription drugs. She has been influencing the direction of the healthcare technology industry for more than 35 years. Her contributions have had significant impact on the major healthcare business sectors – providers, payers, pharmacy, life sciences and, most importantly, patients. It has been Miriam’s life’s work to improve the U.S. healthcare system through the power of information. A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

5/4/26 • 19:36

In December 2024, a Guidehealth customer needed blood pressure readings from thousands of seniors — fast. Over 200 people making calls for 20 straight days was the traditional answer. Guidehealth deployed an AI voice concierge instead. It collected over 2,000 readings in days, and about 15% came back elevated — undiagnosed hypertension cases that needed escalation. That was the proof of concept. Now it's the operating model.The Tech Glow Up from Vive continues with another experienced leader in Health IT sharing their journey in innovation.Sanjay Doddamani, founder and CEO of Guidehealth, is a physician who spent two decades running population health at Geisinger and UT Southwestern before building the company he wished existed. Guidehealth works across benefits administration and value-based care with one stated mission: make great healthcare affordable for all. Since 2023, the company has grown from 200,000 patients to over 800,000, while headcount grew from 200 to just 262 people.[00:00:54] Making healthcare affordable for all: why dramatically lower operating costs are the only path to sustainable patient care.[00:05:07] Brain, voice, and touch: the three-layer model that balances AI efficiency with human escalation across every patient interaction.[00:08:07] The blood pressure call: one AI campaign, 2,000-plus home readings, 15% elevated cases caught — and the proof of concept for agentic AI in healthcare.[00:11:24] Garbage in, garbage out: why rich, accurate data context is the prerequisite for responsible AI deployment.[00:23:04] The hot take: every routine administrative task is sitting on top of a clinical signal most companies never look for.Sanjay's frame is the tortoise and the hare applied to healthcare AI: moving fast but responsibly — building in human escalation, earning URAC accreditation, and starting with the lowest-risk use cases. The 30-plus strategic advisors and a C-suite he calls a "council of ministers" are the infrastructure that lets a physician founder scale without losing sight of the patient.Watch the full conversation on YouTube → https://youtu.be/kQdmpeuxxl8Join the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Sanya Doddamani:Dr. Sanjay Doddamani is a practicing cardiologist and founder and CEO of Guidehealth. He handpicked a team of nationally recognized technology, operational and clinical leaders who are elevating performance for leading health systems, payers, and self-funded employers. He previously served as a Senior Advisor at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), helping develop alternative payment models focused on quality and cost across the U.S. healthcare system. He clinically led two large health system–led accountable care organizations and pioneered innovative delivery models including Geisinger at Home.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/30/26 • 31:59

The NIH issued a policy encouraging the inclusion of women in clinical research in 1986. It took until 2016 — 30 years — for sex to be formally accepted as a biological variable. Camille McWhirter, VP of Clinical Trials, Real World Data, and Cancer Registry at Omega Healthcare, has been in and around clinical research for over 20 years and considers that gap one of the most consequential data problems in healthcare. The Tech Glow Up from Vive continues with another experienced leader in Health IT sharing their journey in innovation.Her team's job now is to clean it up — taking the explosion of unstructured wearable and clinical data and turning it into something usable enough to get more women, and more patients from rural and community settings, into clinical trials that currently over-represent academic medical center populations.Camille started as a lab rat in a cancer research lab, crossed into SaaS and digital transformation, and returned to clinical research with a conviction that the tools conversation in healthcare is backwards. Her hot take: she is not a fan of plug-and-play. Point solutions create fragmented, frustrating tech stacks. Nathan put it as "death by a thousand clicks." Her answer is interoperability — not just technical, but cultural too. If the industry is serious about making data talk, it needs to make its people talk first.[00:05:17] The customer satisfaction secret: how Omega's clinical division maintains nearly 100% satisfaction and what that reveals about trust in healthcare services.[00:07:03] From lab rat to VP: Camille's 22-year arc from cancer research through SaaS back to clinical trials — and what the full loop clarified.[00:11:05] Women's health Glow Up: why the wearable data explosion is an opportunity — and a mess that needs cleaning before more women can access clinical trials.[00:13:44] Human in the loop: AI works operationally, but complex clinical data still needs humans to maintain FDA-grade quality.[00:15:09] Squash your imposter syndrome: the mentorship conviction that shaped her career and why the last word in her LinkedIn profile is "how can I help?"Watch the full conversation on YouTube → https://youtu.be/qWgA3pn16CUJoin the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Camille McWhirterCamille McWhirter is Vice President at Omega Healthcare, where she leads strategic partnerships for intelligent health data curation and cancer registry services that deliver high-quality, research-grade real-world and clinical trial data. She works with health systems, life sciences, and health-tech organizations to capture, abstract, and standardize data from disparate sources, enabling registry management, and AI/ML support at scale. She has deep experience in EHR integration, automation, and advisory services to streamline healthcare operations.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/27/26 • 20:10

We're almost 60 episodes in and I haven't really introduced myself.Oops.Hi. I'm Nathan C (they/them), and I started The Tech Glow Up as my love letter to the founders and innovators I've had the privilege of meeting throughout my career. The people who are building things that matter, quietly, with everything they have, often without nearly enough support or recognition.I saw a disconnect early on that I couldn't stop thinking about. There were so many teams putting so much passionate work into the world — and only a fraction of them were ever really breaking through. Not because the ideas were wrong. But because there was this gap between how they wanted to show up and how they were actually landing with the enterprise leaders they were trying to reach. I saw giant enterprise organizations trying to work with startups in ways that were totally disruptive and dysfunctional for everyone involved. I saw the ROI on enterprise innovation quietly bleeding out.I wanted to put my arms around all of them and say: hey. There's a better way. You don't have to do this blind.So I started asking questions. Publicly. On a podcast.The conversations I was hungry for weren't the ones I was finding. I wanted the real ones — the ones about the hard choices, the lonely stretches, the small curious questions that ended up unlocking enormous things. The human side of innovation that gets edited out of most polished founder narratives.There aren't enough conversations about what it actually costs to lead transformational technology. The grit, the integrity, the decisions you make at 2am that nobody ever hears about. There aren't enough stories about what it looks like when leading with heart turns out to be a really good business strategy. And there aren't enough honest accounts of the small steps that compound into something remarkable — because those stories don't go viral, even when they're the ones most worth telling.That's the gap I set out to fill.From deep tech and spatial computing to healthcare, climate tech, and resilient local networks — I talk with the leaders of growth-stage companies who have been there, seen it all, and made it through the hardest parts of the journey. We look for the real stories that drive actual impact in tech innovation. Not future-state hypotheticals. What's working now, for real people, like you and me.60 episodes in, I've spoken with over 300 leaders in tech innovation. From Sony and Meta to Cisco, Lenovo, Blockbuster, and 7-Eleven — and just as importantly, from the early-stage founders who are still figuring it out and doing extraordinary work anyway. Every one of those conversations feeds my strategic consulting work and makes me a sharper thinker about what it takes to build something that lasts.I want to share all of it with you.Not a highlight reel. Not a hype machine. Just honest, grounded conversations with people who have earned their perspective.I'm so glad you're here.— Nathan CA "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/24/26 • 05:01

For 25 years, Dr. David Buchanan called quality his hobby. In healthcare, you get paid for volume — not for keeping people healthy. Every hospital admission he prevented, every chronic condition he managed well, was essentially unpaid work. He did it anyway. Then he discovered global capitation, and everything changed.At Town Square Health, the company David co-founded after eight years as Chief Clinical Officer at Oak Street Health, the business model is built on outcomes. Town Square contracts with insurers to take full financial responsibility for a patient population — so every dollar invested in prevention and primary care comes back as profit instead of overhead. Quality stopped being a hobby. It became the job.Key Moments:[00:04:48] From hobby to livelihood: how global capitation turned David's 25-year commitment to quality into a viable business model.[00:07:32] The data advantage: why capitation contracts plug Town Square into insurance data feeds — so they know when a patient hits the ER before the patient's own PCP does.[00:13:10] Give the agents the red tape: how AI reduces a patient's care team to two trusted people by offloading referrals, authorizations, and scheduling to agents in the background.[00:15:44] The missing field: there is no standard place in electronic health records for a patient's health goals. Town Square makes it one of the first things they ask.[00:17:08] Doctors talking to each other: how telehealth lets Town Square bring a specialist into the room with the PCP and patient together — something fee-for-service has made nearly impossible.David's philosophy is simple but radical: patients and primary care providers want the same thing. It's the business models sitting in between that have made it hard.By removing those blockers; through capitation, AI, and a care model built around the patient's stated goals, Town Square is building what David believes will be the most trusting PCP-patient relationships in decades.Watch the full conversation on YouTube → https://youtu.be/5QqET4VnkVMJoin the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Dr. David BuchananDr. David Buchanan guides Town Square Health’s mission to deliver patient-centered, value-based primary and specialty care for Medicare-eligible populations. A board-certified internist and seasoned healthcare leader, he previously served as Chief Innovation Officer for CVS Healthcare Delivery, Chief Clinical Officer at Oak Street Health, and held senior roles across community health systems and Medicaid initiatives. Dr. Buchanan earned degrees from MIT and the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and completed residency training at UCSF.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/23/26 • 20:03

The same surgery. The same doctor. The same hospital. Same insurer, but a different insurance plan and a price that's three times higher. That's not a hypothetical. It's the daily reality of healthcare in 2026, and it's what Dr. Allison (Alli) Oakes, VP and Chief Research Officer at Trilliant Health, has spent her career trying to fix.Alli sat down with Nathan C Bowser live at Vive 2026 to talk through what health plan price transparency data reveals about the American healthcare system. Trilliant sits at an unusual vantage point: not a provider, payer, or employer, but an independent research engine that aggregates claims data, price transparency data, and provider directories to give stakeholders a picture of their full market — including where patients are leaking out and where money is leaving the system without explanation.Her hot take closes the episode: be as bold about de-adopting technology that isn't performing as you are about adopting the new thing.Key Moments:[00:03:12] What Trilliant Health Does: How claims data, price transparency data, and provider directories combine to show what no single stakeholder can see alone.[00:04:19] The Price Variation Problem: Same procedure, same market, three to ten times the cost depending on your payer — and why it's solvable.[00:08:25] Garbage In, Garbage Out — Multiplied: Why generative AI makes clean data more critical, and how Trilliant built a five-to-seven-year head start.[00:11:38] The Value Equation: Healthcare is 18% of US GDP with worse outcomes than comparable countries. Patients can't shop their way out of this problem.[00:16:49] The Hot Take: Rapid experimentation only works if you're equally bold about cutting what the data says isn't working.Watch the full episode on YouTube, subscribe to The Tech Glow Up, and join the newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Allison Oakes, Ph.D. Dr. Allison (Alli) Oakes is a health services researcher dedicated to translating complex data into actionable insights. With a background spanning academia, government, health systems, and payers, she brings a comprehensive perspective to the complexities of the U.S. healthcare system. As Chief Research Officer at Trilliant Health, Alli leverages extensive internal datasets to inform strategic decision-making across the industry.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/20/26 • 20:16

Everyone says AI in healthcare needs a "human in the loop." Fewer people can tell you what that actually means. This live Vive 2026 episode of The Tech Glow Up features two health IT veterans who are done waiting for theory to catch up with practice.Virginia Halsey, SVP of Product and Strategy at First Data Bank, has 35 years in health IT and a clear view of where medication workflows are failing. Pharmacists spend 30 to 40% of their day verifying prescription orders, while the clinical judgment they trained for goes unused. FDB is building tools to fix medication reconciliation and free pharmacists to round and participate in real patient care. Her hot take: even big tech companies love the AI buzzwords but aren't ready for healthcare-specific protocols like MCP when you get into the details.Dr. Jay Anders, CMO at Medicomp Systems, practiced internal medicine for 20 years and has spent 21 years since as the bridge between clinicians and tech. Clinicians haven't been asked what they need from AI, and when ambient listening tools produce text that nobody verifies, "human in the loop" is just a phrase. Medicomp converts ambient AI output into structured clinical data and gives clinicians a fast way to validate what the system produced.Key Moments:[00:04:04] The Medication Workflow Problem: Why pharmacists spend 30–40% of their day on verification — and what FDB is building to change that.[00:07:23] Med Rec on Admission: The fragmented data problem that makes medication reconciliation risky when patients can't speak for themselves.[00:10:03] The AI Readiness Gap: Many organizations love AI buzzwords but aren't ready for the protocols that make it real in clinical settings.[00:20:45] "They Haven't Been Asked": Why clinician trust in AI is in turmoil — and why the fix starts with asking doctors what they need.[00:21:32] Beyond the Text: Medicomp converts ambient AI transcripts into structured data, then gives clinicians a fast way to verify the output.Watch the full episode on YouTube, subscribe to The Tech Glow Up, and join the newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Jay Anders:Dr. Jay Anders serves as the Chief Medical Officer of Medicomp Systems, where he plays a pivotal role in product development and acts as a liaison to the healthcare community. He hosts the award-winning HealthcareNOW Radio podcast, “Tell Me Where IT Hurts,” discussing critical issues such as physician burnout, EHR usability, healthcare interoperability, and the impact of technology on healthcare with industry experts. About Virginia Halsey:Virginia Halsey serves as senior vice president of strategy and product management where she manages the team responsible for the development and success of all FDB solutions spanning a variety of healthcare markets across the US and Canada. A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/16/26 • 28:48

The revenue cycle is one of healthcare's most expensive blind spots. Health systems pour everything into clinical excellence and then leave money on the table through billing leakage, under-coded claims, denied authorizations, and documentation gaps that erode reimbursement for genuinely complex care. Nitesh Shroff, co-founder and CEO of Arintra, has spent five years building the AI infrastructure to close that gap.Nitesh came to healthcare from an unexpected place. He was an early AI engineer at Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company now owned by Amazon, where the work was perception models, real-time object detection, and safety-first architecture. The throughline to Arintra is direct: just as a self-driving car cannot afford to misread a pedestrian, an AI coding system cannot afford to hallucinate a medical code. Every code Arintra generates is fully explainable, tied back to the source documentation, and auditable. Clients have started using that audit trail as evidence in denial appeal letters to payers — a use case Nitesh didn't design for but has now built into the workflow.[00:03:18] What Arintra Does: How a network of clinical and financial AI agents reads physician notes and converts them into accurate medical codes — the backbone of every insurance claim.[00:05:56] Why Hallucination is Not an Option: The case for explainable AI in revenue cycle, and how redundancy in the system exceeds human coding accuracy.[00:09:06] From Autonomous Vehicles to Healthcare AI: The perception model work at Zoox and why safety-first thinking translates directly to medical coding.[00:11:00] The Denial Letter No One Expected: How hospitals are using Arintra's code explainability as evidence in insurance denial appeals.[00:13:58] How Fast Arintra Scales: A new location turns on in five minutes. A new specialty is built from scratch in three to four weeks.Health systems provide exceptional care. The billing infrastructure around that care should match. That's what Arintra is building.Watch the full episode on YouTube, subscribe to The Tech Glow Up, and join the newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancAbout Nitesh ShroffNitesh Shroff is the CEO and co-founder of Arintra, an autonomous coding platform that combines GenAI with deep clinical expertise to help health systems get paid accurately and efficiently for the care they deliver. Nitesh holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning from the University of Maryland and is an inventor with 30+ patents and publications. Throughout his career, Nitesh has applied AI and cutting-edge technologies to solve high-impact problems where precision and reliability are essential. As an early engineer at Zoox and Light, he developed foundational technologies critical to the performance and safety of autonomous vehicles. A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/13/26 • 19:22

Most AI reads your words. Attune Media Labs built one that reads your body, your mannerisms, your culture. David and Robert Bosnak, the father-son co-founders and HLTH Foundation Techquity Impact Award recipients, spent decades waiting for the technology to catch up with their idea. When GPT-3 arrived in 2020, they launched MIM, an artificial emotional intelligence companion that processes the tone, pitch, cadence, facial expressions, and body language that make up 93% of human communication.Robert has been a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst for 55 years and first developed emotion recognition at the MIT Media Lab in the 1990s, when computers were too slow to run it in real time. David studied electrical engineering, spent a decade in LA writing and acting, then returned to engineering. Together they set out to close the mental health supply-demand gap by putting emotionally intelligent AI in the hands of people who need it most, starting with the unhoused community in Los Angeles and scaling now to frontline healthcare workers in Cameroon, where the doctor-to-citizen ratio reaches 50,000 to one.Episode Key Moment Highlights:[00:03:13] The MIT Media Lab origin: how 55 years of psychotherapy and a 1990s research project became the foundation for artificial emotional intelligence.[00:05:37] Beyond sentiment analysis: how MIM reads nonverbal biomarkers and detects the dissonance between what you say and how your body actually feels.[00:12:01] The public benefit corporation decision: why Attune was built around user wellbeing from day one, not advertising or engagement.[00:15:30] The Cameroon pilot: 1,000 frontline health workers, a 50,000 to one doctor ratio, and what it means to build MIM for a culture you know nothing about yet.[00:22:47] The guardrails: 18 and over only, usage caps, and why people report feeling compelled to reconnect with real people after using MIM.Their vision is not a digital therapist. MIM learns who you are, adjusts to your culture, and is designed to be pro-social, making real human connection more possible, not less necessary.Watch the full conversation on YouTube and like and subscribe so you never miss an episode of The Tech Glow Up.📩 GO DEEPERJoin the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancA "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/11/26 • 29:12

Most CEOs at VIVE were talking about what AI could do. Brent Dover, CEO of Carta Healthcare, came back to the Tech Glow Up with receipts. Since we last spoke in October, Carta grew revenue 50% in a single quarter, retained every customer, and is now in conversations with major health systems about platforming their entire abstraction operations at scale.The work is specific and the impact is real. Hospitals spend $15 billion a year paying nurses to log into patient records, scan through dozens of entries, and manually abstract the data that goes into clinical registries. That data drives 30 years of quality benchmarking across the country. It is how hospitals know whether their knee replacements, their stents, and their stroke care are actually measuring up. Carta's AI tools cut that process from two hours to 40 minutes per form, surface findings a human abstractor might have missed, and do it while keeping the nurse's hands on the keyboard the entire time.Episode Key Moment Highlights:[00:02:38] The $15 billion problem: why hospitals spend a fortune on clinical data abstraction and what is actually at stake in the quality data it produces.[00:05:52] What effective AI looks like in practice: from two hours to 40 minutes per form, better answers, and less cognitive burden on the people doing the work.[00:08:51] The cake mix design principle: why Carta deliberately slows the AI down just enough to keep humans cognitively engaged and in the driver's seat.[00:11:57] The update: 50% revenue growth since October, zero customer churn, and a path to doubling or tripling the business again within a year.[00:15:05] The Glow Up for 2026: closing the loop so abstracted data feeds back into hospital data science initiatives within an hour of the case, while the patient is still in the building.Brent calls the standard approach to business backwards thinking. Most companies prioritize the company first and treat customers and employees as means to that end. Carta is building the other way around, and the growth numbers are making the case.Watch the full conversation on YouTube and like and subscribe so you never miss an episode of The Tech Glow Up.📩 GO DEEPERJoin the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancA "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/9/26 • 21:13

What if the biggest barrier to healthcare AI wasn't the technology, but it was the workforce not yet equipped to use it? Dr. Pavitra Krishnamani is the newly appointed Director of AI and Digital Health Education at MD Anderson Cancer Center and an emergency physician who's been at the intersection of clinical care and digital health innovation for nearly a decade. Her answer to that question is the job she was literally just handed.Pavitra's path here started in a fellowship at Jefferson, where she was the clinical voice embedded in a team of designers and developers. That team built a VR code blue simulator that was later patented. In one year. That origin story shaped everything: her belief that getting the right people at the table early, clinicians, developers, designers, (all of them) is what separates innovation that gets translated into real healthcare settings from the ideas that never make it out of the lab.Episode Key Moment Highlights:• [00:04:06] The AI and Digital Health Journal Club: how MD Anderson gets clinicians, technologists, and business leaders in the same room to dissect what's actually working — and what isn't.• [00:05:21] Inside the hackathon: why MD Anderson opened it to residents, fellows, and trainees — because innovation comes from collaboration first, not seniority.• [00:09:27] The VR patent story: how one fellowship produced a patented VR code blue simulator and a cardiac rehab virtual reality research program.• [00:16:07] Where healthcare AI is actually delivering ROI today: predictive analytics, clinical decision support, and freeing up human capital to do what AI can't.• [00:22:04] "Innovate with purpose": Pavitra's call for translational innovation — starting with a problem and a person, not a product.Pavitra coined a phrase in this conversation I haven't been able to shake: translational innovation. Asking from day one how your solution will actually be adopted, not just whether it works in a lab. Her work at MD Anderson is building the culture and curriculum to make that the norm.Watch the full conversation on YouTube and like and subscribe so you never miss an episode of The Tech Glow Up.Join the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancA "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/6/26 • 25:07

The reality of health equity starts not in a clinic but in the community, addressing fundamental needs like housing, food, and transportation that doctors and nurses can't solve. These critical factors, known as Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), are the true barriers to living healthier and happier lives. But who is on the ground, doing the vital work of connecting people with these resources and building the necessary trust? Community Health Workers (CHWs)—trusted community members with invaluable lived experience—have been the hidden backbone of this effort, often operating with just paper and spreadsheets. Founder Colby Takeda of Pear Suite is on The Tech Glow Up to talk about the technology he built to incorporate these local experts into the official healthcare system and, most critically, finally get them paid. This episode is a deep dive into how Pear Suite, a 2026 HLTH Foundation Techquity Award winner, is driving value-based care in local communities.Pear Suite’s philosophy is elegantly simple: healthcare should be done in the community, and those with the most relevant experience must be empowered to lead. Takeda explains that their solution not only uplifts the CHWs’ work by providing a practice management software to organize their efforts but also allows them to handle the compliance, billing, and claims that are essential to unlocking reimbursement opportunities and value-based care contracts.Episode HighlightsSocial Determinants of Health Focus: The platform helps local workers address critical factors like housing, transportation, and food security that doctors and nurses are unable to directly assist with.Value-Based Care Success: A partnership with Health Net in California saw over 800 CHWs onboarded in 12 months, leading to reduced ER admissions and increased vaccinations and cancer screenings for over a million members.Enhancing the Workforce with AI: Pear Suite is actively working to integrate AI not to replace the essential human element of CHWs but to enhance their capacity, reduce mistakes, and save them time.The Power of Lived Experience: Takeda built the company on the principle that the lived experience CHWs bring to the table "can't be bought or taught," making them the most qualified navigators for hard-hit communities.Takeda's compelling approach is a masterclass in building a successful and equitable business model: act as the intermediary that translates the on-the-ground successes of nonprofits into the language of health plans (metrics and cost savings), ensuring the community's work is both valued and financially compensated. By starting from the community and building trust, Pear Suite is proving that investing in this workforce is an investment in the health outcomes and long-term sustainability of the entire system.Watch the full video on YouTube, and please like and subscribe to The Tech Glow Up! A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/4/26 • 27:09

Healthcare has a data problem, but not the kind most people assume. The information exists. It's scattered across dozens of systems that don't talk to each other, and every provider encounter requires reconstructing your story from scratch. In this live Vive 2026 episode, I sit down with three leaders each working on a different layer of that gap.Joe Hickey, VP of HIE and Provider Solutions at Verato, makes the case that stable patient identity is the foundation everything else is built on. Healthcare poured billions into EMRs, CRMs, and data lakes over the past decade and got fragmentation in return. Patty Hayward, GM of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Talkdesk, returns to the show with a view of where AI earns its keep (scheduling, reminders, billing) while keeping clinical decisions with humans. Lathe Bigler, SVP of Business Strategy at Buzz Health, closes with the case for price transparency as a patient right. Buzz Health embeds affordability intelligence as an API layer so providers and patients see the same price at the moment it counts.Key Moments:[00:04:26] Identity as Infrastructure: How a decade of data investment created fragmentation, and how Verato unifies patient identity across the enterprise.[00:16:00] The AI Signal Worth Noticing: Physicians who planned to retire in two years now have three to five more, because ambient listening transformed their daily workload.[00:20:59] Where AI Belongs Right Now: Patty draws the line between what AI handles in patient communications and where human judgment stays essential.[00:25:00] The Change Management Blind Spot: Bring physicians into contact center projects early or they become the biggest blocker — Patty's most consistent advice.[00:34:10] The Prescription Abandonment Numbers: 75% of providers say cost barriers prevent patients from picking up prescriptions. Buzz Health puts the solution inside the prescribing workflow.Three conversations, one clear thread — the gap between what patients need and what they get comes down to information that exists but isn't connected, surfaced, or trusted. Watch the full episode on YouTube and subscribe so you never miss The Tech Glow Up.Join the Tech Glow Up newsletter on Substack → https://substack.com/@mxnathancA "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

4/2/26 • 38:19

One pattern keeps showing up in the hundreds of conversations I have with CEOs and clinical innovation leaders: the companies that last are the ones that stay in service of the human relationship. Dr. Louise Chang, Global VP of Clinical Strategy at Elsevier and practicing internal medicine physician, is one of the clearest examples of that principle in action."What if AI could actually take the jargon and confusion out of healthcare — so patients and clinicians could finally talk like real people?" Louise has spent 20+ years asking that exact question. She's building toward AI that bridges the gap between the clinician's workflow and the patient's journey, making care feel more human, not less.She's moved through startups and scale-ups, nonprofit and for-profit, consumer to provider to payer. And she's watched wave after wave of hype roll through the industry. What she's learned: staying grounded matters more than staying ahead. Episode Key Moment Highlights: [00:05:26] Healthcare AI today: why we're seeing a wide range of outcomes, from "working fast and failing fast" to genuine clinical value at the point of care.[00:06:37] ClinicalKey AI in action: how physicians are using it to access patient-specific insights instantly, enabling quick decisions and deeper learning at the same time.[00:08:22] The Glow Up for 2026: Louise's vision for AI that doesn't flash — it smooths, bridging the patient and clinician workflow so care actually feels more connected.[00:10:18] Closing the care loop: Louise and Nathan align on the big idea — patient AI research and clinician AI tools eventually speaking the same language.[00:13:39] Contact lenses, not glasses: Embedding AI so naturally into clinical workflows that it stops feeling like a tool and starts feeling like part of you.Louise is the clinician who became the strategist — the translator between how medical minds work and how product teams build. Her personal mission is making sure someone is on the clinician's side, and that drives everything she does.Like and subscribe to The Tech Glow Up, and watch the full episodes on YouTube.Join the conversation on Substack for the deeper analysis behind every episode. About Our Guest:Louise Chang, MD, FACP is a physician executive and internal medicine physician with over 20 years of experience at the intersection of clinical care, digital health, and healthcare innovation. She currently serves as Global Vice President of Clinical Strategy & Partnerships at Elsevier, where she leads clinical strategy for a global portfolio of evidence-based clinical decision support and workflow solutions, including the development of responsible, AI-enabled tools used by clinicians.Dr. Chang has held senior clinical and product leadership roles across startups, scale-ups, and established organizations, including Babylon Health, WebMD, and the American Cancer Society.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

3/30/26 • 24:43

Rural communities often face a grim choice: drive three hours for a specialist or wait nine months. This massive barrier to specialty care is one of the biggest drivers of health inequity. What if a primary care provider could get a specialist consult and a clear next step for their patient in a matter of seconds, right there in the exam room? Reza Sanai, a cardiologist and founder of Picasso MD, is on The Tech Glow Up to detail the curbside consult platform that’s transforming specialty access.Picasso MD’s three-pronged approach is designed to reinforce the primary care office, the most critical space in the world, by eliminating a significant percentage of unnecessary referrals and optimizing care. Reza explains that the technology is designed for physician adoption: three clicks, and a provider is live-chatting with a specialist in an average of 17 seconds. This ensures a patient walks out with an answer, not a phone number and a nine-month wait. The philosophy driving the company is simple: connect with your community and practice value-based care. By making specialists more accessible, Picasso MD is not only improving patient outcomes but is also optimizing the patient before their in-person visit, which is a key value proposition for the entire healthcare system.Episode HighlightsTechquity Definition: Tech equity in healthcare means technology that drives better access, personalized care, and inclusion of marginalized populations.Specialty Access Gap: The Picasso MD platform was created to bridge the 9- to 12-month wait times often seen for specialty care in rural and underserved communities.Physician-Designed Workflow: The platform is engineered for speed, allowing a PCP to connect with a specialist in under 20 seconds for real-time clinical decision support during a normal 15-minute patient visit.Referral Optimization: A sophisticated algorithm prioritizes provider favorites and local networks for referrals before relying on the platform's network, ensuring local care is always first.Patient Navigation: The company believes the next major wave of health innovation is helping patients navigate their path from an initial AI/LLM inquiry to thoughtful, value-oriented specialist throughputs.Reza’s origin story, rooted in giving out his mobile number to colleagues to build trust and cut down on unnecessary ER visits, proves that scaling impact begins with prioritizing the provider and patient experience.Watch the full video on YouTube, and please like and subscribe to The Tech Glow Up!A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

3/28/26 • 19:09

Recorded live at the VIVE event: The healthcare industry is hungry for AI standards, governance, and certification, making the need for genuinely trustworthy tech more urgent than ever. CEOs Dr. Tim O’Connell of emtelligent and Oren Nissim of Brook Health return to the show to cut through the hype and share where the industry is actually going and what applications are delivering real results today. We dive deep into the next big applications for AI—from saving a doctor half their time on consult chart review to tackling the isolation and loneliness epidemic of chronic illness—and how to ensure this technology remains effective and responsible for everyone in the care loop.Episode Key Moment Highlights:AI-Assisted Chart Review: AI-powered chart review software is already cutting a clinician's patient review times by half, dramatically speeding up decision-making for solo practices reviewing 40-page consult requests [00:01:03].Data Extraction Accuracy: After 10 years in business, emtelligent is seeing spectacular, state-of-the-art results for the accuracy of coding complex, unstructured medical data into clear, organized information [00:05:00].Loneliness Gap: For older patients with chronic conditions, having a reliable AI conversation partner 24/7 genuinely helps bridge the isolation and loneliness gap caused by their illness [00:10:05].Regulatory Confidence: Policy and government intervention, including increased reimbursement and new access models, are currently pushing the industry toward safe digital health in a positive direction, which Tim and Oren are encouraged by [00:14:04].This conversation is a bold, enthusiastic look at how we build the next generation of safe digital health—one that uses effective, governed technology to genuinely support caregivers and empower patients to confidently manage their chronic conditions and navigate complex lifestyle changes at home.Watch the full episode on YouTube and please like and subscribe to The Tech Glow Up!About Oren Nissim: Oren Nissim is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Brook Health, a pioneering healthcare technology company dedicated to transforming chronic disease management through AI-driven, always-on remote care.Brook’s platform blends advanced artificial intelligence with compassionate human clinical support to help individuals better manage chronic conditions, improve health outcomes, and extend access to personalized care beyond traditional clinical settings.About Tim O'Connell:Dr. Tim O’Connell is a practicing radiologist in Vancouver and cofounded emtelligent in 2016. He has served as vice chair of medical informatics in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Radiology since 2017. Prior to his clinical and entrepreneurial careers, Dr. O’Connell worked as an IT professional for Nortel Networks and Bell, where he was director of engineering for the Bank of Montreal account.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

3/26/26 • 20:42

Live from The VIVE Event, powered by HLTH and CHIME: The average cancer patient makes 500 decisions during their treatment journey, often in rushed, 10-minute appointments, feeling lost without a map. Samira Daswani, CEO of Manta Cares, turned her own frustration with a broken system into a mission to build a platform that puts the patient first, full stop. On this episode of The Tech Glow Up, live from the Vive Event, Samira shares how she's redefining the healthcare industry by creating an "objective fourth pillar" that drives patient incentives, starting with breast and lung cancer.Samira's unique approach blends human-centered design with rigorous research, starting with a paper planner based on over a hundred peer-reviewed papers to help patients manage their 63 appointments in the first year. Now, her AI partner, Hope, provides contextually relevant, personalized support, mapping out the 500 decisions so patients have confidence they are getting the right care. For Samira, if you lose sight of the patient story, there's no point in building the product, even while acknowledging the need for business growth and scale.Episode Key Highlights:[00:06:06] Paper Planner Success: How a paper product based on clinical research still serves a population of patients aged 70+ who find digital tools difficult [00:07:24] AI Partner Hope: The use of Hope AI to detect and help grade symptoms like pain or nausea using the P-R-O-C-D-C-A standard to ensure patients know when to call their doctor.[00:11:54] Patient-Driven Gravity: Samira's goal is to create a place for patients so powerful that the economic gravity of the system (payers, providers) is forced to realign to patient needs.[00:12:40] Financial Toxicity: Why removing the high likelihood of cancer patients going bankrupt is the one blocker Samira would erase with a magic wand.[00:19:39] The Patient from Hell: The philosophy behind the name of Samira's other podcast, arguing that a patient must go against the system's "cohort" structure as an imperative for survival.By prioritizing the patient's needs and leveraging purpose-built, narrow AI tools—like Hope, which handles 90% of its use cases around treatment decision-making—Manta Cares is forcing a necessary Glow Up in healthcare. It's a fundamental shift away from simply being "patient-centered" to being truly "patient-first," creating a better system for everyone.Watch and subscribe to the full episode on YouTube and hit that like button to help other people find these essential conversations.Samira Daswani is the founder and CEO of Manta Cares, the most comprehensive platform for cancer patients, care partners, and clinicians. A stage 2B breastcancer survivor diagnosed at 30, Samira transformed her firsthand experience of the fragmented and chaotic cancer experience into a mission to revolutionize cancer care.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

3/24/26 • 25:07

The spatial computing world is buzzing, but not everything is growing: while virtual reality (VR) hype might be flattening for consumers, augmented reality (AR) in the enterprise is exploding. The key to this growth? Moving beyond bulky headsets and figuring out how to make AR glasses lightweight and wearable for long periods of time. Global Head of Enterprise at XREAL, Amir Khorram, has had a front row seat to the entire XR journey and shares why lightweight AR is finally delivering massive value for industries like healthcare, aerospace, and education.Amir's philosophy on innovation is deeply rooted in experience: the most successful technologies don't go it alone. He details how XREAL, a company that initially focused on building a global consumer brand, found its unexpected enterprise success by observing how doctors and teachers were already using their glasses. This insight led to a focus on partnership ecosystems—identifying XREAL's core strength (hardware) and supporting developers and distribution partners (like Manage XR, Arbor XR, Pixo VR) who excel at content and deployment.Episode HighlightsEnterprise Adoption Signal: Organizations in finance, hospitals, and music schools started deploying AR hardware on their own, proving the technology's real-world value outside of consumer gaming.The Form Factor Challenge: Legacy VR deployments validated immersive tech for saving money and improving training, but the clunky form factor made long-term, widespread use challenging.Immersive Health Applications: Lightweight AR glasses are making a difference across healthcare, from mental health breaks and distraction therapy for dialysis patients to physical rehabilitation and remote consultations with medical professionals.Strategic Planning in Enterprise XR: XREAL's 2026 plan balances short-term tactical goals (3-6 months for distribution) with longer-term developer and innovation support (6-12 months for Project Aura).Entrepreneurial Advice: Founders should seek knowledge and actively leverage tools, technology (including AI), and partnerships to move faster, drawing on a lifetime of experience from a family of successful entrepreneurs.Amir’s ultimate mission for XREAL’s enterprise business is to establish a core foundation by actively amplifying the impressive, real-world stories of their developer and partner community. He argues that seeing AR technology proven as a genuine solution for industries—where it saves money and boosts efficiency—is the most effective way to inspire widespread investment and accelerate the market.Hear the full conversation and see the future of enterprise AR on YouTube now. https://youtu.be/ygvu8KQLuHUAbout Amir: Over a 20 year career Amir Khorram continues to build and lead winning teams in cutting edge industries. From 5G to XR, Amir’s business units drive record setting results around the globe. Amir now leads global enterprise at XREAL, where his team is tasked with delivering world class hardware and services to everyone from SMB’s to Fortune 500 organizations.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

3/19/26 • 27:05

14 years ago, before the AI boom, marketers were stuck in "batch and blast" and data-overwhelmed. I talk with Colin Nederkoorn, CEO and co-founder of Customer IO, about his company’s journey from convincing people to use behavioral data for deterministic paths to becoming critical infrastructure for the new era of AI-driven, real-time customer communication that has fueled the company to over $100 million in ARR.Colin shares a profound philosophy for early-stage founders: not every company needs to "blitz scale." His methodical approach was about building the machine for compound growth, raising "a little bit of money" only to buy time to reach the next milestone, rather than a big venture round that forces speed. This patience allowed Customer IO to build a powerful platform that could "complete the loop" by measuring if a user's behavior changed inside their product.Episode HighlightsBehavioral Data: The critical shift from list-based "batch and blast" to using real-time behavioral data to influence user actions and complete the feedback loop.Compound Growth: The mathematical insight that a steady 20% month-over-month growth, consistently applied, creates an outsize business over the long run because of the power of compounding.AI's Role: Customer IO's six-month "Glow Up" is a commitment to use AI to remove all the "drudgery" for marketers in setting up complex, sophisticated campaigns.Leadership Fuel: A blunt piece of feedback from an investor—that Colin "wasn't a good enough CEO"—became the motivation to hire a coach and accelerate the company’s trajectory.Incumbent Advantage: Colin’s spicy hot take is that traditional SaaS businesses positioned as "critical infrastructure" will figure out AI and thrive, avoiding massive displacement.Colin’s story is a masterclass in strategic product-led innovation: learning from customers, making a crucial pivot, and maintaining a level-headed, long-term approach to business growth. His focus on unlocking the power of a robust, data-rich platform for the new age of LLMs is a clear roadmap for any founder in the B2B space.Watch the full episode on YouTube and make sure to like and subscribe to The Tech Glow Up.About Colin NederkoornColin Nederkoorn is the founder and CEO of Customer.io. Since starting the company in 2012, he has focused on creating products that help brands connect meaningfully with their users. Drawing from his passion for entrepreneurship and experience in product leadership, including his time as Head of Product at ChallengePost, he leads the executive team, drives innovation, and manages the company’s growth. Based in Portland, Oregon, when he's not building Customer.io, he enjoys sailing, coaching youth soccer, and cooking.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

3/12/26 • 33:58

Most teams ship “good” products that quietly fail because they never tested them with the people they were supposedly built for. This Techquity Awards special is a four-part episode on how to fix that. I’m joined by Janna Guinen, Executive Director of the HLTH Foundation, plus three Techquity Award winners—Reza Sanai of PicassoMD; Colby Takeda of Pear Suite; and David and Robert Bosnack of Attune Media Labs—who use Techquity as a practical blueprint for building products that actually work in the real world.Techquity, as Janna defines it, is innovating with everybody in mind—from how you validate the problem to who can realistically use your product on the other side. The HLTH Techquity Awards are case-study based, not feel-good trophies. Applicants document how they involved the communities they serve, which population they’re designing for, and which metrics prove they’re closing gaps for both patients and the teams who care for them. This year’s winners show three different ways to put Techquity into practice: PicassoMD’s curbside specialist consults at the point of primary care, Pear Suite’s tech and billing rails for community health workers and local organizations, and Attune Media Labs’ AI emotional intelligence companion for burned-out clinicians.Episode Highlights:Techquity Awards use a rigorous case-study process that forces teams to show their problem validation, design choices, and metrics—not just outcomes slides.PicassoMD tested its curbside consult platform head-to-head in an affluent urban clinic and a rural clinic with many uninsured patients, proving the model can work in very different settings.Pear Suite onboarded more than 600 community health workers and doulas across 80+ organizations serving Medi-Cal members, closing 80% of identified social needs gaps.​Attune Media Labs deployed an AI-based emotional intelligence companion with over 1,000 clinicians in rural Cameroon, where about 65% reported burnout, and designed against benchmarks for retention and engagement.Janna makes the case that Techquity should be the default lens for digital health because inclusive design improves ROI, stickiness, and long-term system sustainability.And we close with Janna’s announcement that the Techquity Awards are moving from ViVE to the main HLTH event, with applications opening in early spring so these case studies get a bigger stage.Watch the full HLTH Techquity Awards Special on YouTube to learn how Techquity turns “health equity” from a buzzword into a build process. Then like and subscribe so you never miss an episode.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

2/26/26 • 87:52

Medical students get one, maybe two chances a year to practice diagnosing real patients. One to two shots before they're the ones making the call. Oli Siska, co-founder and CEO of Kaleidoscope XR, builds VR and AI tools that blow that limitation wide open. Caregiver VR puts up to 20 students in a virtual classroom where they role-play dementia care scenarios—and the person playing the resident actually experiences simulated auditory and visual hallucinations. OSCI AI Pro lets medical students practice patient conversations 24/7 on any device with an AI avatar that talks back.Episode Highlights:Caregiver VR triggers real symptoms of dementia—auditory and visual hallucinations—so trainees feel what residents experience, building empathy you cannot get from a lecture or textbook.OSCI AI Pro replaces expensive standardized patient exams that require doctors behind one-way mirrors and hired actors, giving medical students unlimited practice on any device, anytime, anywhere.VR training produces seven times more information retention than traditional instruction, while standardizing content so every trainee gets the same quality regardless of location.New legislation regulating healthcare aides in February 2026 opens a massive opportunity for frontline workers in long-term care to get certified through accessible, on-demand training tools.Subject matter experts drive every build at Kaleidoscope XR—the number one mistake any company can make is thinking they know what the customer needs without asking first.Oli's next move is expanding OSCI AI Pro beyond doctors and nurses into long-term care, where healthcare aides deal with dementia responsive behaviors every day without enough training. 60% of the mission is better patient care. The other 40% is worker satisfaction—the more control frontline workers have over their day, the better it is for everyone.Watch the full episode on YouTube - https://youtu.be/UXNH9l9_BG4Like and subscribe so you never miss an episode.About Oli SiskaOli Siska works with a talented team on technology development that enhances human dignity—particularly in healthcare and aging.As CEO of Kaleidoscope XR, I lead a team that creates immersive training solutions solving real problems: medical students who can't access enough clinical practice, caregivers who need to truly understand what dementia feels like, frontline workers who deserve better preparation before high-stakes patient interactions.Our work spans VR empathy training, AI-powered clinical simulations, and custom solutions designed for social good. We specialize in making complex technology accessible and ensuring it serves humans—not the other way around.I believe technology should make the world more compassionate, more equitable, and more accessible. That's what drives everything I do.Beyond tech, I'm an artist—poetry, music, visual art—because creativity and innovation are inseparable.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

2/12/26 • 35:25

Holly Taylor was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer after selling her last company. Her rare form usually gets caught at stage one—99% survivable. Stage three? Different story. That personal experience drives everything she does at Lucem Health, where she's general manager of strategic partnerships focused on early disease detection using AI to find patterns in patient data before symptoms even start.Cervical cancer went from deadly to 99% survivable once pap smears became normal preventative care. Same approach could work for pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, type one diabetes—if we catch them early. But Holly's not just throwing AI at the problem. Episode Highlights:Clinical research background spanning 15 years taught Holly to measure what matters and use data to make ruthless decisions without emotional attachment to ideas that aren't working.Cervical cancer survival jumped to 99% once pap smears became standard preventative care, proving early detection transforms outcomes for diseases like pancreatic cancer and type one diabetes.Healthcare represents 20% of GDP and employs more people than any other industry, which means disruption requires purpose and partnership with overwhelmed physicians and health systems.Keet Health scaled from 11 engineers fresh out of UT to 6 million patients and 30-40% of physical therapists nationwide by protecting innovation culture even as the company grew fast.Type one diabetes screening using BERT transformer models aims to prevent 60% of kids from ending up in life-threatening diabetic ketoacidosis before diagnosis.Holly cuts through complexity with data-driven decisions and refuses to waste time on solutions that don't work. At Lucem she's focused on contracting that 17-year medical adoption timeline by building programs that educate patients and physicians while respecting the reality of stretched-thin healthcare teams. Her magic wand wish? Fix healthcare reimbursement chaos so systems can focus on patient outcomes instead of survival mode.Watch the full episode on YouTube https://youtu.be/oQpYlp35zmkAbout Holly TaylorHolly Taylor is a healthcare entrepreneur and executive with more than 30 years of experience at the intersection of patient care, healthcare delivery, and technology innovation.She has founded and led multiple startups to successful commercialization in population health, clinical research, and digital health. Her ventures have delivered innovative solutions reaching millions of patients and tens of thousands of providers. Her career is guided by the belief that meaningful innovation uses technology to improve both clinical outcomes and the human experience.Holly currently serves as General Manager of Strategic Partnerships at Lucem Health, where she stewards the commercial success of the company’s early disease detection programs.A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.  If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

2/5/26 • 41:21