The Tech Glow Up - Fabulous conversations with innovative minds.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 operatioA "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.

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.

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.

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 decisionA "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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sabrina Runbeck spent a decade in cardiothoracic surgery. She operated on hearts. Now she operates on healthtech companies—fixing what's broken before founders even see it themselves. As co-founder of PulsePoint Path and the Health Tech Impact Awards, plus Chief Strategy Officer at Health Board Advisors, Sabrina teaches founders something critical: your pitch deck means nothing if you can't clearly explain who you help and what problem you solve in under two minutes.Many founders get this backwards. They pitch everywhere—conferences, investor calls, demo days. Lots of top-of-funnel activity, lots of conversations. Then nothing happens because they never learned how to follow through. They're building companies like side projects. Episode Highlights:Healthtech founders waste precious time telling 10-minute background stories instead of getting straight to traction, core problem solved, and what makes them different from every other startup at the conference.Health Tech Impact Awards runs like a founder bootcamp—free application, two-minute video pitch, public voting, then final six compete in a game show format that teaches you to speak investor language.Women make up 70-80% of the clinical healthcare workforce but less than 15% on the venture side and barely 20-30% in executive leadership—Sabrina's TED Talk breaks down the 3% problem.Sabrina assesses founders across five levels: body communication, psychological profile, natural skillset, behavior patterns, and spiritual purpose—if your deepest values don't align with company mission, you'll burn out.Clinician advisors with 10+ years experience can join Health Board Advisors to vet startups, guide product development, and help bridge early-stage companies to venture partners who understand clinical workflow reality.Applications for Health Tech Impact Awards close March 1st. Six categories: diagnostic, digital health, medical device, biotech, mental health, women's health. Winners get featured on The Tech Glow Up. Watch the full episode to hear why Sabrina thinks we need more clinicians making investment decisions early, not waiting for big hospital systems and VCs to catch up.Get Seen by the Right Investors, Not Just Any InvestorsThird-party validation is the trust shortcut most founders overlook. Apply now for the HealthTech Impact Awards—six categories, one chance to be seen by capital-ready backers.Nominations close March 1, 2026 HealthTechImpactAward.comA "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.

Nic Fonta leads XR at Autodesk, where architects, engineers, and designers collaborate in virtual reality to catch design problems before construction begins. The math is stark: $280 billion spent globally every year on rework and material waste on construction sites because of poor communication and misalignment. Workshop XR (autodesk.com/workshopxr) , Autodesk's immersive collaborative platform, lets teams put on VR headsets and walk through their designs at full scale before a single brick is laid.His background is surprising for someone leading a design collaboration tool: Nic is a software engineer who started in flight simulator technology working on a $35 million MIG-29 cockpit simulator. After hesitating between architecture and engineering in university, engineering won—but he ended up serving architects anyway. His entire career has been in real-time rendering and simulation: flight simulators, gaming at Electronic Arts, and now helping the AEC industry see what they're building before they build it.The magic happens when an architect puts on a VR headset and realizes they missed a design flaw for months—something twisted in the geometry that appeared broken in VR but was invisible in their 2D design tool. That moment changed everything for Nic. He knew XR could transform how people work.Today, Workshop XR helps teams find problems earlier, reduce material waste, increase engagement during design reviews, and identify safety hazards before workers hit the site. The next frontier: integrating AI agents into the immersive space so they learn from spatial relationships and how humans understand and feel design decisions.Episode Highlights:A $35 million MIG-29 flight simulator cockpit sparked a career in real-time simulation that led to serving architects instead—because Nic chose engineering over architecture in university but ended up designing tools for both.Workshop XR reduces $280 billion in annual global construction rework by helping teams find design problems earlier when they're cheaper and faster to fix.One architect walked into VR, spotted a twisted geometry in the main entrance, and realized months later in his 2D tool that he'd missed the same flaw the entire time—that moment proved XR transforms how people see.Safety reviews emerged as a second use case when construction teams used the same immersive experience to identify hazards before workers reached the site, reducing accidents and rework.Watch the full conversation on YouTube.About Nic FontaNic Fonta is a Montreal-based technology and product executive with over 25 years of experience driving innovation at the intersection of real-time rendering, simulation, gaming, and XR. Since joining Autodesk in 2014 for his deep real-time expertise, Nic has played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s XR strategy. He led the development and go-to-market of Revit Live, managed the 3ds Max product line, and now serves as General Manager for XA "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.

David Nussbaum started Proto Hologram in his living room in 2018 to answer a simple question: what if instead of using holograms to bring back dead musicians, you used them to connect the living? The result is a seven-foot-tall holographic display that lets people beam into rooms across the world—live, prerecorded, or as interactive AI avatars that speak more than 300 languages and dialects.His background is broadcasting. As a kid, David sat in his dad's Volkswagen listening to talk radio, fascinated by communicating with someone who wasn’t physically there. That turned into an obsession with connection across distance—first as a radio broadcaster, then as one of the first 1000 podcasters on Apple, where he eventually met his wife. Proto is the next evolution of that obsession: instead of talking into a phone, you broadcast yourself as a hologram.Episode Highlights:Broadcasting obsession started in a Volkswagen listening to talk radio, led to a Howard Stern fixation at 14, turned into 25–30 years in radio and one of the first 1000 podcasts on Apple—where David met his wife.William Shatner beams into Sydney for a keynote and calls Proto a time machine because it saved him two weeks of travel—he gave his speech and was home having breakfast with his wife in LA the same morning.Christie’s beams multi-million-dollar sculptures and paintings globally instead of physically shipping them, protecting priceless works while giving collectors intimate previews before auction.Healthcare is the next frontier: oncologists beam into rural clinics, HIPAA compliance is live, and David’s goal is to replace flat Zoom calls and virtual doctor visits with the presence of holographic physicians for cancer patients receiving sensitive news.David Nussbaum has spent his life obsessed with connection across distance. Proto is the latest evolution of that mission. His favorite part: he still sells through experience—visitors create their own AI avatar in the office and walk out with a piece of the technology.Watch the full conversation on YouTube to hear why David believes AI isn’t something to fear, but something to embrace—and how using it well can create connection instead of replacement.About David NussbaumAn award-winning An award-winning writer and producer, Nussbaum founded Proto after 20 years in the entertainment industry, having spent time in sports radio, television, podcasting and live events. David was named to TIME’s Healthcare100 List for 2025 and has spoken at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, USC, the Infinity Festival, CES, Christie's Art + Tech Conference, and at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art.  With the slogan, “If you can’t BE there, BEAM there!” David walks the walk, beaming from company headquarters in Los Angeles to meetings on multiple continents every week to save on business travel time and expense & carbon impact.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.

Most of the time spatail computing isn't rocket science, but for this conversation, it is. Alex Goldberg leads augmented reality at Blue Origin. He helps rocket scientists and manufacturing engineers work faster, collaborate better, and solve problems that require precision at the edge of what's possible. His tools include AR glasses for remote assistance, digital twins built from reality capture, and spatial data that tells the story of how a component travels through a manufacturing lifecycle from fabrication to launch.Alex's work is about giving engineers infographics on steroids; helpful tips in their field of view when they need them. It's about capturing the physical environment as digital twins so teams can see what actually got built versus what was designed. And it's about giving people the freedom to discover uses for the technology that even he didn't expect.Episode Highlights:A VR arcade job at 19 led to game testing at Rocket Science Games, years later at Blue Origin actual rocket scientists call Alex a wizard when they see what AR does for manufacturing.AR for manufacturing works best as contextual infographics right now; helpful tips in engineers' field of view—because rapid iteration cycles outpace documentation updates.Remote assist delivers a massive win; factory floor workers put on AR glasses, call offsite experts, get unblocked in real time, and can create annotations for asynchronous training without an expert present.People who have access to actual spatial data stop thinking of information as living on a server and start thinking of it as living in that physical location—they've built a new mental model for data organization.The best moments in innovation happen six months after launch when someone in the team discovers a novel application that solves a problem Alex wasn't even aware existed.Alex Goldberg builds for the moment when an engineer looks at spatial data overlaid on reality and understands something they couldn't have grasped from a flat screen. His focus is on getting out of the way and listening to how teams actually work.Watch the full conversation on YouTube to hear why mixed reality is fading and why see-through AR glasses are the inevitable future within three to five years.About Alex Goldberg:Alex’s work bridges storytelling and cutting-edge technology and empowers teams across the education, retail, and manufacturing sectors to maximize the full potential of spatial computing.Alex brings a unique blend of creativity and technical expertise to the world of interactive technology. Leveraging a broad background in mobile game and app production, Alex has produced many top-ranking enterprise and consumer applications for iOS and Android platforms. Since 2015, Alex has stood at the forefront of spatial computing: designing innovative augmented reality experiences that focus on training for complex tasks and procedures. 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.

Cortney Harding thinks the Spatial Race has already started, but most companies are lookiing 10 years ahead. As founder of Friends with Holograms and author of The Spatial Race, she works with Fortune 100 companies to build strategies in spatial computing and artificial intelligence before they get disrupted. Cortney's real focus is solving the actual business problem first. She built an Amazon training where warehouse workers promoted to management roles could practice difficult conversations with AI-powered virtual humans at scale. It worked because it started with a real problem: managers felt unprepared, team members felt disconnected, and in-person training couldn't scale. Most companies skip that step and start with "we need to do AI." That's why 95% of corporate AI pilots fail.Episode Highlights:Amazon's management training challenge became a VR solution powered by AI, where employees built customized virtual humans to practice conversations at scale, resulting in a 92% improvement in outcomes across Irish warehouses.Companies fail at AI pilots because they reverse-engineer from the technology instead of starting with the business problem, and she's built her practice on helping teams think problem-first rather than technology-first.Enterprise adoption lags behind the hype because VR headsets are now simple to deploy—the real blocker is bad content.In 10 years, people will experience the world through head-mounted devices powered by AI, and companies that start building for that future now will survive the disruption while incumbents get left behind.Cortney approaches immersive tech like a strategist, not a technologist. She teaches at Caltech, Barnard, and New Mexico State. She writes for Forbes. She's speaking on stages worldwide. Her core message: the spatial race is happening right now, and preparation beats disruption.Watch the full conversation on YouTube https://youtu.be/w_bG57HBP6U.About Cortney HardingCortney Harding is an in-demand expert in helping businesses harness the power of artificial intelligence, spatial computing, and virtual reality. She has created AI-powered conversational avatars for companies like Amazon, the NIH, and Verizon, and virtual reality training scenarios around topics like child abuse, workplace exclusion, mental health, Black maternal mortality, and racial bias for companies like Lowe’s, Walmart, PWC, Target, and more. She leads workshops for Fortune 100 companies and universities on how to use AI and VR in education and training. Her work has been honored on numerous occasions. As an executive producer on JFK Memento, she was nominated for an Emmy and the piece won the audience award for best XR at SXSW and Best in the World at the QLD XR Festival. Her work has also been honored as the Best VR/AR of 2019 at Mobile World Congress, a SXSW Innovation Award Finalist, and a Top HR Product by HR Executive. 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.

There's a philosophical difference between making a film and creating an experience. Paul Raphaël discovered that difference when he put the Oculus Rift on for the first time in 2013. He realized immediately that everything he'd been taught about cinema—framing, pacing, narrative structure—had to get rethought from the ground up. Twelve years later, he's still figuring out what immersive storytelling actually is.At Felix and Paul Studios, they've designed cameras that didn't exist, built experiences where 160+ people free roam through a virtual ISS together, and just launched Interstellar Arc at Area 15 in Las Vegas—a full hour inside a purpose-built spaceport. But the technical accomplishments aren't what's interesting about Paul. What's interesting is his obsession: story serves feeling, not the other way around. Everything else gets sacrificed to that principle.Episode Highlights:He spent years exploring immersion through projection mapping and 3D installations before VR showed up, and that foundation changed how he approached building for the medium.When he cracked how to shoot 360 stereoscopic 3D, he realized VR wasn't just a new platform—it was a fundamentally different medium that required rethinking everything about how to tell stories.Interstellar Arc abandons the three-act structure entirely, instead placing you in one hour of real-time experience waking up 260 years in the future approaching a new world.Paul protects creative freedom over financial opportunities, which means his team takes bigger risks and stays obsessed with exploring the medium instead of chasing quick wins.Tech companies keep building headsets not because they're stubborn, but because they understand immersive is inevitable—and it's going to take decades to build it right.Paul approaches immersive storytelling like a medium that demands invention, not adaptation. His 12-year journey reveals why most VR experiences fall short: they're films pretending to be immersive, not experiences built from the ground up for the space around you.Watch the full conversation on YouTube to hear how Paul navigates the tension between artistic obsession and survival, and why he believes VR filmmakers have to completely unlearn cinema.About Paul RaphaëlPaul Raphaël is an Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker and creative technologist renowned for his pioneering work in immersive storytelling. Blending artistic vision with cutting-edge innovation, he continually redefines the boundaries of narrative experience to evoke a profound sense of presence and emotional connection.As co-founder and Head of Innovation at Felix & Paul Studios, Paul spearheaded the development of proprietary camera systems that enabled Strangers with Patrick Watson. In 2025, Felix & Paul Studios unveiled Interstellar Arc at AREA15 in Las Vegas—its most ambitious project to date. 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.

Caitlin Lacey was supposed to teach Shakespeare to high school sophomores. Instead, she started at Facebook in 2010 answering ad review tickets; a move that turned into a decade shaping how billions of people connect online. Now as Director of Global Product Marketing at Cisco, Webex, she oversees the WebEx collaboration suite and the hardware business that powers conference rooms, airports, and enterprise spaces around the world.Her career has been defined by one principle: get out of the group chat and into the real world. Whether she was dogfooding early Facebook features or launching immersive collaboration tools at Cisco, Caitlin approaches technology through the lens of human connection and storytelling. SEpisode Highlights:Curiosity took her from answering ad review tickets to leading global product strategy, shaped by dogfooding products with her own family and learning how humans actually want to connect.Cisco Spatial Meetings lets design teams and city planners collaborate in real time within Apple Vision Pro, manipulating 3D models together and laying the foundation for when immersive collaboration becomes standard.Getting global alignment across teams in different time zones is the hardest part of her job, and she'd use a magic wand to get everyone in one room for 30 minutes to align on the market story.A CMO threw her on stage to demo a product two months after she started at Cisco, and that bet on her potential changed her trajectory and shaped how she now looks for sparks in her team.AI isn't going anywhere, but the humanity behind it is taking center stage, which means English degrees are about to become more valuable than they were five years ago.The best stories start from a place of curiosity. Caitlin learned this at Facebook, proved it at Meta with emerging tech, and now applies it every day at Cisco as she defines the future of workplace collaboration. Her path shows that the most valuable skill in tech isn't technical knowledge—it's the ability to understand what people need and tell them why it matters.Watch the full conversation on YouTube to hear how Caitlin built her career by asking the right questions and believing in her team's potential.About Caitlin LaceyCaitlin is a product marketing leader with 15+ years of experience shaping go-to-market strategy across emerging technology, hardware, and collaboration software. She leads marketing for Cisco’s Employee Experience portfolio, spanning devices and software that power hybrid work. Known for building high-performing teams and crafting narratives that drive adoption, she brings a sharp focus on business impact and human connection.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.

Innovation is just a creative response to a challenge. For Amy Hedrick, CEO of Cleanbox Technology, that challenge was the "ick factor" of sharing virtual reality headsets. She saw the future of learning, but she also saw that nobody would adopt it if it meant putting on a sweaty device used by a stranger.Amy Hedrick is the founder and CEO of CleanBox Technology. Her journey started at Mobile World Congress in 2015 when she put on an Oculus Rift. With a background working with the Smithsonian Institution and its 158 million objects, she immediately saw how immersive tech could transform education and history. But she also identified the massive barrier to entry: hygiene. She founded CleanBox to solve it using rapid UVC LED disinfection. Today, the company holds over 50 global patents and operates in 15 different verticals.Highlights include:Comprehensive XR Hardware Management Guide launched with 10 industry partners. It solves the unsexy but critical backend infrastructure problems for enterprise adoption.Helped publish two new hygiene standards with ASTM for the industry. Standards enable trust and scale.Founder resilience: you need a mix of "ignorance is bliss" and "knowledge is power." If you knew how hard it was going to be, you might not start. That ignorance protects the vision when you hit a brick wall.Using AI clones: "Amy AI" on the website answers technical and strategy questions so she can focus on 2026 planning.Innovation isn't a straight line. She pivoted from a think-tank background to running a hardware company with global supply chain complexities because that's where the opportunity led.Amy's approach to selling hardware is simple: never sell the mayonnaise, sell the sandwich. Nobody wants to buy a jar of mayo to sit in the fridge; they want the result. Similarly, nobody wakes up wanting to buy a UV disinfection box. They want risk-free XR programs for their enterprise. CleanBox is building the infrastructure that lets VR scale.Watch The Tech Glow Up on YouTube - https://youtu.be/PGS8PyGiZmkAbout Amy HedrickAmy Hedrick is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Cleanbox Technology, a pioneering sustainable disinfection company built to solve real-world problems through innovative solutions.  Amy’s leadership has expanded Cleanbox Technology’s reach around the world, establishing the brand as a leader in its field.Hedrick is a thought leader in the applications of immersive technology as industry disruptors, bringing innovation and new market opportunities and the development of a comprehensive Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for hardware management, setting new benchmarks for excellence in XR enterprise and healthcare adoption.Ms. Hedrick has been in both the immersive tech and UV product development spaces for close to a decade, supporting innovation in UVC applications, speaking frequently on UVC for surface decontamination.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.

Death by a thousand clicks. That is the problem facing clinicians who spend hours navigating scattered tools for documentation, billing, guidelines, and decision-making. One doctor-turned-founder accidentally built 50 apps trying to solve it before realizing he was an entrepreneur.PJ Park is co-founder, chairman, and chief product AI officer at Avo MD. He came to the United States from Korea about ten years ago and joined a residency program barely able to speak English. On his first day, a senior asked him to call a dying patient's family. He missed everything. That experience drove him to start building software on his own to make his "imperfect doctor" perfect. He built app after app during residency until he had created 50 different tools. His friends finally told him he should start a company. He had to Google what that even meant.Avo MD is an AI clinical copilot platform for clinicians. Unlike scattered point solutions that each solve one narrow problem, Avo MD builds shared components that work like Lego blocks across workflows. The platform handles admission, discharge, rounding, and charting by combining patient data, hospital guidelines, and evidence-based protocols. AI makes recommendations, then doctors discuss and decide. The goal is a meaningful doctor-AI relationship rather than just more clicks.Highlights from PJ Park at Avo MD:Built 50 apps during residency before friends told him to start a company. He had to Google what a startup was. His only goal was making his imperfect doctor perfect.Partners with content and IP companies like MCG for evidence-based guidelines. Turnaround time is 10 days versus six months to a year for larger companies. AI consumes proprietary guidelines to make better outcomes.His new iron triangle for healthcare: patients get better, doctors go home early, hospitals make more money.His insight about the industry is that AI scribes are the first AI solution clinicians actually love because they were not built by administrators forcing compliance. But scribes only cover patient encounters. Most clinical care involves connecting dots between guidelines, protocols, documentation, and billing without any recording to transcribe. That is where Avo MD focuses.Healthcare gets better when AI takes care of the technical checklists and lets humans do the thinking.Live from HLTH 2025 - Watch on YouTube.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.

Wearables track thousands of data points daily, but most becomes noise instead of signal. Clinical notes document critical patient information, yet we cannot extract meaning at scale. Two founders solving how we turn data into trusted care.Oren Nissim is the co-founder and CEO of Brook Health. He has type two diabetes himself, which drove him to build remote care for people with chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, CHF, and COPD. The company works as part of the health system, extending primary care into the home. His mission is simple: people living with multiple chronic conditions at home need agency. The tools are cheap and covered by insurance. Brook collects thousands of data points daily from every patient. AI compares against baselines and identifies anomalies. But here is what matters: a care team analyzes AI-flagged anomalies first, then brings medical decision recommendations to providers instead of raw data summaries.Tim O'Connell, MD is a practicing radiologist and CEO of emtelligent, a nine-year-old medical language AI company. The company does large-scale data extraction from clinical notes and AI-assisted chart review. He started the company in 2016 during the deep learning boom, years before the 2022 LLM explosion. His differentiator is that emtelligent does not use large language models as its core. The company builds custom language models optimized for cost, speed, and accuracy at massive scale. His vision for healthcare is better data extraction from unstructured notes so we can use the critical information clinicians spend so much time documenting.Highlights from Oren Nissim at Brook Health:His glow up is about use cases, not widgets. The industry is being forced to prove ROI rather than just adding more time and cost.The company uses AI to flag anomalies, then care teams validate and present medical decisions to providers. This creates guardrails so providers can trust what they see.His spicy take: watch Medicare Advantage closely over the next few months as some players walk away and others walk in.Highlights from Tim O'Connell at emtelligent:His six-month glow up is moving pilots to implementations. After years of experimentation, 2025 is the year of execution.When extracting data, the software shows exactly where terms came from in source documents. This builds trust and allows human reviewers to verify accuracy.His industry glow up is better healthcare analytics. We need to extract meaning from the documentation clinicians spend so much time creating.Healthcare gets better when we turn overwhelming data into trusted insights that providers can act on.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.

From testing hundreds of cancer drugs in 10 days to unlocking healthcare stories through audio—conversations with two innovators solving how we personalize treatment and tell those stories live from HLTH 2025.Jim Foote is the founder of First Ascent Biomedical. He built the company after losing his 17-year-old son to cancer. First Ascent takes a biopsy, enriches cancer cells rapidly, and then tests hundreds of FDA-approved drugs to determine which work against your specific biology. The results were published in Nature Medicine. The stakes are high: one in three cancer patients will die in 2025. Cancer is the number one killer of men under 50, number two for women, and number one for children by disease type. Foote believes we have the tools and technology, but doctors need better decision-making infrastructure to use them effectively.Dan Kendall is the founder of Mission Based Media. He has been in health innovation since before digital health was called digital health. He has been listening to podcasts since 2005. In 2016, he could not find a healthcare podcast that worked, so he built one. He now runs Health Podcast Network and Health Unmuted, which he describes as "WebMD for your ears." His insight is that audio unlocks content from its glass jail cell. People consume podcasts in cars, kitchens, and on dog walks. These are places where meaningful connection happens without competing for attention with thousands of other things.Highlights from Jim Foote at First Ascent Biomedical:Combined with genomics, doctors receive a ranked drug list in 10 days with 85% correlation between lab results and body response. Nature Medicine showed 83% patient benefit rate versus standard care.Pictures of cancer patients line the lab walls because "every biopsy is somebody's loved one."His vision is to scale locally so biopsies are taken, analyzed, and treated in the same community. This closes the financial toxicity gap affecting 95% of pediatric cancer families.Highlights from Dan Kendall at Mission Based Media:Built the first digital health podcast in 2016 when none existed. He has been a podcast listener since 2005 with his first 80-gigabyte iPod.His philosophy is that audio unleashes mechanical waves that physically stimulate thought, creating connection when people are ready rather than competing for attention.His mission is to amplify voices through audio-forward storytelling that meets audiences where they are rather than demanding they come to you.Healthcare innovation personalizes treatment and meets people exactly where they are.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.

From a bootstrap founder using spreadsheets to track her own cancer treatment to a data infrastructure veteran start-up leader uncovering $10-15 billion in hidden healthcare value—this episode of The Tech Glow Up features conversations with two entrepreneurial CEO’s solving what happens when you center patient empowerment and unlock trapped data live from HLTH 2025.Jennifer Johnson, CEO and founder of JennJ Health and Fitness, has spent 15 years in healthcare operations, strategy, and oncology data analytics. Then she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at 38—a diagnosis that disproportionately affects Black women who are 40% more likely to die from the disease. Advocates for herself, found her own lump, pushed for screening—and survived. That diagnosis became her founding insight. She built Fitness Can on a spreadsheet during treatment, combining her data analytics expertise with her lived experience. The app helps breast cancer patients and HRT users track fitness, medications, and appointments with full transparency and agency. Brent Dover, CEO of Carta Healthcare, has spent 35 years solving healthcare data problems. He discovered his superpowers early: finding a founder with a great idea at the moment it's taking shape, then scaling it. He's built four companies by knowing exactly where he adds value—the five-to-fifty stage where innovation meets infrastructure. His insight: zero-to-five is the bet-it-all visionary; five-to-fifty is the infrastructure builder; fifty-to-five-hundred is the strategist. He's the five-to-fifty guy. Now at Carta, Dover is tackling healthcare's biggest hidden data problem: hospitals spend $10-15 billion annually paying humans to manually abstract data from unstructured clinical notes into quality registries. Highlights from Jennifer Johnson at JennJ Health and Fitness:15 years in healthcare operations, strategy, oncology data analytics; diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at 38; 40% more likely to die due to being a Black womanCreated Fitness Can on spreadsheet during treatment; secured UCSF grant to launch free; now available in Apple StoreSpicy take: Women's health is on the rise—clinical trials, studies, innovation, solutions finally moving from afterthought to center stageHighlights from Brent Dover at Carta Healthcare:35 years in healthcare data companies; discovered his five-to-fifty scaling superpowers; fourth company he's building from inceptionSolving $10-15 billion problem: hospitals paying humans to abstract unstructured clinical data into quality registry formsStrategy: AI co-piloted by clinicians validates output, transforming manual tax into structured data for analytics, process improvement, and better patient careThe result: healthcare innovation that centers patient voice and unlocks the data that's been trapped, waiting to improve 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.

More of Nathan C's conversations with 2 healthcare leaders solving what happens when medical devices talk to each other, and what happens when patients have real choice.Bilal Muhsin, EVP Connected Care at BD, is building infrastructure that moves healthcare beyond disconnected devices. With expertise from his first company where he scaled embedded device providers into solution platforms, Muhsin now oversees pharmacy automation, infusion dispensing, and patient monitoring—all communicating within a unified ecosystem.BD's new Incada platform does what healthcare infrastructure hasn't done yet: connects products so clinicians see the whole patient picture, not fragmented alarms. His philosophy centers on trust and safety, using physiological models to guide AI rather than black-box algorithms, validating everything before patient contact, and learning offline before reintroducing improvements.Lathe Bigler, head of FDB Vela, the E-prescribing Network at First DataBank,, tackles the last-mile problem: once doctors prescribe, patients need to actually get their medications. For 15 years, Bigler has been a patient advocate focused on transparency and choice. Vela connects EHR systems to pharmacies through a neutral network, giving patients real agency—they don't just tell doctors "send it to the pharmacy by my house"; they can see pricing, check drug availability, compare options, and choose where to pick up their prescription. FDB's database has protected patient safety for years through drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction screening, but Vela extends that mission to the entire patient journey. Highlights from Bilal Muhsin at BD:Leads BD's Connected Care segment spanning pharmacy automation, drug dispensing, infusion, and patient monitoring—now unified through new Incada platformPhilosophy: AI guides within physiological models, not black-box algorithms; validate before patient contact; learn offline, reintroduce improvements only after full validationOrigin: NICU nurse showed him a premature baby monitored by BD sensor, saying "What you do saves these babies' lives"—redirected his entire career toward outcomes-focused healthcare infrastructureHighlights from Lathe Bigler at FDB Vela:Runs First DataBank's e-prescribing network (Vela) connecting EHRs to pharmacies, enabling patient transparency and choice around pricing, drug availability, and pharmacy locationPatient advocate for 15 years; focused on transparency, choice, and consumer agency in healthcare; using AI to detect fraud, waste, abuse, and anomalies in prescription patternsSpicy take: 720+ healthcare data breaches in 2024; advocating for redundant networks as patient safety infrastructure so one breach doesn't shut down the entire prescription systemThe result: healthcare infrastructure that works because it listens to data, validates everything, keeps humans in control, and gives patients real agency in their own 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.

From translating medical jargon into human language to using AI to keep healthcare human—conversations with two founders solving opposite sides of the same problem live from HLTH 2025.Aaron Patzer, CEO of Vital.io, is the founder of Mint.com and former head of product at Intuit. Seven years ago, he started Vital with his brother-in-law Dr. Justin Schrager to guide 7 million patients through urgent care, emergency room, and hospital journeys by translating medical language into terms patients actually understand. His "doctor-to-patient translator" converts medical jargon like "cerebral infarction of the left hemisphere" into "stroke" and transforms lab results into human terms based on each patient's reading level, language, and education. Growing to 15 million expected by end of 2026, Vital meets people exactly where they are—available in Spanish, Armenian, Somali, and Haitian Creole—with 80% adoption at children's hospitals and 65% average use in emergency departments.Michael Oleksiw, founder of Pleio, spent a decade in fashion and tech before his wife's pancreatic cancer diagnosis at age 33 redirected his mission to healthcare. Pleio uses AI not to replace humans, but to inform them—analyzing patient conversations retrospectively to identify emotional peaks and valleys, fear, stigma, and loneliness that prevent medication adherence. With humans always in the loop, Pleio's approach focuses on behavioral change triggers and removing barriers that get in the way of patients actually following through with their care. His "tech glow up" is about finding where technology crosses with humanity, keeping the person at the center.Highlights from Aaron Patzer at Vital.io:Founded Mint.com (25M users), sold for $175M; former head of product for Intuit; now growing Vital to guide 7 million patients through hospital experiencesBuilt a "doctor-to-patient translator" that adapts medical language to each patient's reading level, education, and language preference in Spanish, Armenian, Somali, Haitian Creole and moreAchieved 65% average use in emergency departments, 80% use at children's hospitals, and expects 15M patients by end of 2026—about 10% of all US hospital visitsHighlights from Michael Oleksiw at Pleio:Wife's pancreatic cancer diagnosis at 33 (3% five-year survival rate at the time) inspired shift from fashion innovation to healthcare; she's thriving 18 years laterUses AI retrospectively to analyze patient conversations, identifying emotional barriers like fear, stigma, and loneliness that prevent medication adherence—always with humans in the loopBuilding behavioral models to empower healthcare professionals to work at the clinical level they thrive on, removing the burden of translating complex information while patients stay centered and supportedThe result: healthcare communication doesn't just need better tech—it needs tech that remembers why it exists—to keA "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.

Thanks for tuning in to these conversations with two founders changing the future of healthcare live from HLTH 2025.Zachary Ziegler, co-founder of OpenEvidence, built a platform that reached 40% of practicing clinicians in just two years by centering a simple principle: every answer includes citations to peer-reviewed research. With access to 40 million papers updated daily with 10,000-20,000 new studies, doctors can verify every claim instantly. Growing 30-40% month-over-month and adding 60,000-70,000 clinicians monthly, Ziegler challenges conventional wisdom—EHRs are already a top burnout driver, forced integration isn't the answer, and physicians prefer autonomy over mandates.Dr. Aditi Joshi, founder of Ardexia, tackles a different crisis: healthcare organizations waste $87 billion annually on contracted technology doctors never use. A former emergency medicine physician who experienced burnout twice, she moved into telemedicine and discovered the core insight—most builders don't understand how physicians actually work. You can't mandate adoption. You can only solve real problems. She's building Ardexia with validation first, burnout prevention as a foundational business strategy, and clinician expertise leading product decisions from day one.Highlights from Zachary Ziegler at OpenEvidence:Started with a Harvard PhD studying language models before ChatGPT; built "ChatGPT for doctors" with complete citation trails to peer-reviewed researchReached 40% of practicing clinicians with daily active usage; adding 60,000-70,000 new clinician users monthly (30-40% month-over-month growth)Philosophy: "Trust, but verify"—every answer sources from original papers so doctors can verify claims against peer-reviewed researchHighlights from Dr. Aditi Joshi at Ardexia:Former emergency medicine physician who discovered during telemedicine work that technology adoption is a people problem, not just a technical problemIdentified the $87 billion annual cost of unused healthcare technology—five-year contracts continuing whether clinicians ever use the toolsBuilding Ardexia with burnout prevention as a foundational business strategy; validation-first approach to understanding specific pain points before scalingThe result: healthcare's AI transformation doesn't happen in the lab—it happens when builders center the people actually using the tools.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.

Live from HLTH 2025, Nathan C sits down with six healthcare innovation leaders to discuss the technologies reshaping patient care, clinical operations, and prevention. This rapid-fire speed round captures emerging themes across the industry—from AI-driven diagnostics to workforce transformation and patient-centered design.The Guests: 00:26 Dave Wessinger | PointClickCare – Care coordination06:50 Dr. Patricia Hayes | Imagine Pediatrics – Pediatric primary care innovation13:46 Dr. John Showalter | Linus Health – Early detection and cognitive health AI20:30 Kent Dicks | Life365 – Social determinants of health & elderly care27:40 Dr. Lior Rauschberger | Gene by Gene – Genomic sequencing & precision medicine34:24 Dr. Colin Banas | DrFirst – Medication data & clinical decision supportKey Insights:AI & Prevention Over ReactionThe collective view is clear: healthcare is shifting from treating disease to predicting it. Early detection tools, cognitive health AI, and genomic analysis are moving the needle on prevention—but only if clinicians actually use them. The challenge isn't the technology; it's adoption and trust.Workforce Is the Bottleneck Every leader pointed to the same problem—clinician burnout, staffing shortages, and fragmented workflows. Technology that reduces documentation burden and improves efficiency at the point of care wins. Technology that adds steps loses.Data Silos Block Better OutcomesMedication data, genomic data, social determinants—it all lives in different systems. The winners are those connecting these dots, giving clinicians a 360-degree view of the patient. Fragmented data = fragmented care.Long-Term Care & Seniors Are Underserved Senior living, pediatrics, and geriatric care all face unique challenges. The organizations innovating here are building for the realities of these populations—not applying one-size-fits-all solutions from acute care.Patient Activation Is the Missing IngredientData and tools mean nothing if patients don't engage. The leaders bridging clinical innovation with patient behavior change are seeing real outcomes—and real revenue growth.Why This Moment Matters:HLTH 2025 revealed a field at an inflection point. The leaders doing well aren't chasing hype. They're solving real problems—clinician time, patient outcomes, data access—with pragmatic solutions. They're also candid about what AI can and can't do, and how organizational adoption (not just technology) drives impact.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.

Julie Smithson, Karen Alexander, and Sophia Moshasha are the co-founders of XR Women, a groundbreaking organization celebrating five years of empowering women in extended reality. What started as a pandemic-era virtual meetup has evolved into a global movement spanning 60+ countries with 1,500 members and nearly 240 consecutive weekly immersive events in the metaverse.Key Takeaways:Consistency Builds Community: XR Women has produced nearly 240 consecutive weekly immersive events—not Zoom calls, but full avatar experiences in virtual worlds—creating an unparalleled space for learning and collaboration in spatial computing.Global Impact from Day One: Within months of launching, XR Women attracted members from around the world. The community now spans 60+ countries with 4-9 different nations represented at every weekly event, demonstrating the universal hunger for inclusive XR education and connection.Five Pillars of Impact: XR Women operates on five core pillars—Leadership, Education, Innovation, Collaboration, and Impact—which guide everything from weekly programming to student chapters, showcasing how structured values drive organic community growth.Learning by Doing: The founders emphasize that mastering emerging technology requires constant experimentation. By hosting events across multiple metaverse platforms weekly, they've built expertise in large-scale virtual production that doesn't exist elsewhere in the industry.Newly Minted 501(c)(3): XR Women recently achieved nonprofit status, opening doors for expanded programming, partnerships, government collaboration, and educational initiatives including student chapters in Kenya and beyond.Throughout November 2025, XR Women is celebrating "The Power of Five" with special events highlighting their five pillars, showcasing speakers from their 240+ event archive, and demonstrating the behind-the-scenes magic of producing weekly events across multiple metaverse platforms.The organization proves that consistent, values-driven community building creates lasting impact. By showing up weekly for five years, by prioritizing education and collaboration over competition, and by building an inclusive space where expertise is shared freely, XR Women has created something rare: a genuinely global community advancing an entire 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.

Please join me in celebrating the 44th, and final episode of Season 1, with a very, very special guest. We'll be back soon with more stories of innovation and entrepreneurship from founders, CEO's and Product Leaders of disruptive and innovative products. - Nathan C. Leslie Shannon, Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting at Nokia, reveals how a 160-year-old company continues to lead by relentlessly adapting, trend-spotting, and cultivating innovation. From sawmills and rubber boots to Bell Labs AI and immersive virtual meeting agents, Leslie shows why the “pipes and infrastructure” backstage of global connectivity are more innovative—and more fun—than most people imagine.Key TakeawaysReinvention DNA: Nokia constantly reinvents itself by leveraging core expertise, enabling pivots from sawmills to global telecom infrastructure and beyond.Enterprise Innovation: Leslie’s trend scouting bridges the worlds of customers, executives, and technologists by bringing outside insights directly into product and network strategies.AI With Safety Nets: Nokia’s unique approach to generative AI—using models for internal efficiency while assuring staff they’ll never be replaced by AI—demonstrates a future-forward, humane corporate playbook.Infrastructure as Opportunity: True innovation—whether in network tech, XR, or AI—is built on the patient, modular assembly of “building blocks” and is tested through customer feedback, not just internal enthusiasm.Tools for Human Collaboration: Shannon spotlights Arthur, a VR meeting tool with an AI moderator that streamlines feedback, crystallizes friction points, and helps teams focus on creative solutions instead of wasting time on consensus-building.Leslie’s journey weaves together Nokia’s multi-generational legacy with modern foresight. She surfaces blind spots, diffuses hype with real customer needs, and ensures Nokia (and its customers) make bets that prepare them for what’s next, not just what’s now.About Leslie ShannonLeslie Shannon is the Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting for Nokia. A Silicon Valley-based futurist, she focuses on identifying connectivity-related tech disruptions and opportunities, including developments in robotics, drones, visual analytics, cloud gaming, generative AI, and especially augmented and virtual reality, the foundations of the Metaverse. Leslie has a BA from the University of Virginia, a Master’s Degree from Yale University, and was a five-time champion on Jeopardy!. She does all her daily fitness work in virtual reality. Leslie is the author of Interconnected Realities, a look at the current and future development of the Metaverse, and, with Catherine D. Henry, Virtual Natives, an examination of how Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s use of digital technologies is revolutionizing how humans relate to both computers and each other.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.

With over a decade in XR and a career that began in marketing and product development, Thaisa Yamamura is dedicated to bridging the gap between complex engineering and creative user needs, bringing innovative 3D, XR, and spatial computing technologies from prototype to market.Thaisa Yamamura is the Head of XR Products and Business Development at Sony Electronics, where she leads the creation and launch of XYN, Sony’s new end-to-end ecosystem of 3D tools for creators. Key Takeaways:End-to-End 3D Ecosystem: Thaisa spearheaded the launch of XYN, a suite of creator-first tools including easy 3D capture (using Gaussian splatting, iPhone & Sony cameras), real-time motion capture (mocopi sensors), and high-resolution glasses-free 3D spatial displays—a pipeline designed to bring 6DoF content creation to professionals and beginners alike.Customer-Obsessed Product Development: From conducting on-the-ground CES research to incorporating real user feedback (like PC streaming for mocopi), Thaisa’s approach is deeply user-driven and iterative, often involving direct partnerships with engineers, the creative community, and early adopters.Versatile Applications: The XYN ecosystem not only supports creators in entertainment and gaming, but is already impacting industries such as virtual production and healthcare (e.g., using Sony’s Spatial Reality Display to view medical DICOM files in true 3D).Collaboration & Partnerships: Thaisa advocates for leveraging industry partners and existing tech—rather than “solutioning” for its own sake—to deliver integrated, rapidly evolving products. She sees her role as “the messenger and connector,” translating user insights into engineering action and aligning stakeholders for maximum impact.Empowering Women in Tech: As one of the only women at the table for much of her career, Thaisa is committed to mentoring globally and creating more opportunities for women in XR and tech—while celebrating her diverse, women-led team at Sony.Thaisa’s current focus is on gathering feedback for XYN’s spatial capturing solution and broadening its real-world adoption from virtual film sets to next-gen indie content, with plans for expanded collaboration and community engagement in the near future.About Thaisa Yamamura - Sony Electronics. Thaisa Yamamura is the Director of XR Business and Product Development for Sony Electronics, with a career spanning over 20 years across Brazil, Japan, and the United States. She currently leads XR initiatives from Los Angeles, focusing on immersive technology,  strategic product and business development.She played a central role in launching the new 3DCG solution XYN™ (/zin/)—an integrated software and hardware platform that supports the creation of spatial content. Thaisa introduced XYN™ on the main stage at Sony CES 2025, maA "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.

Aidan Wolf is the Co-Founder and CEO of DreamPark, a company reinventing the future of theme parks by bringing massive, multiplayer, mixed-reality experiences anywhere—malls, parks, or even your own backyard. With a background spanning games, social apps, and AR, Aidan and his team are proving that immersive play can spark joy, community, and real-world revitalization.Key Takeaways:Downloadable Theme Parks: DreamPark turns any large space into a "downloadable" theme park—no physical props, just a handful of headsets and compelling digital worlds. Experiences range from whimsical coin-collecting adventures to wizard duels and mixed-reality races.Designing for Immersive Play: The magic is in the details: seamless onboarding (no headset straps), worlds that feel alive whether you’re observing or playing, and player-driven, non-linear exploration inspired by theme park and classic video game design.Serious Growth, Real Impact: From all-in bets like forgoing rent to buy more headsets, DreamPark landed a commercialization breakthrough with successful public tests, a Shark Tank appearance, enthusiastic VCs, and rapid expansion into malls and parks in Seattle, LA, and soon, Long Island.Community and Accessibility: DreamPark is on a mission to revitalize real communities—bringing families and kids to empty malls and parks and creating new opportunities for play, learning, and belonging in overlooked spaces.Lessons in Iteration: The team credits their success to relentless user testing, honest feedback, and learning from customer behaviors in live settings. DreamPark’s vision is about lowering barriers for both players and aspiring creators—the next goal is to let anyone build and launch their own DreamPark.Aidan’s personal journey—from childhood world-builder to AR founder, to DreamPark CEO—shapes every product decision around creativity, accessibility, and the belief that play can transform both places and lives. With a growing suite of games and partners, DreamPark is shaping the future of spatial entertainment and the power of collective imagination.About Aidan Wolf Aidan Wolf is the award-winning creator behind hit viral AR apps like DoodleLens, Blue Sky Paint, and RPG for Snap Spectacles and is now on a mission to make an Earth Worth Playing at DreamPark, the downloadable theme park company.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.

Meet the humble leader who used AR to send women to the moon and saved millions along the way! (And that's just one of the impressive things she's done with XR and AI!) Shelley Peterson is the founder of Wizard Wells and a pioneering leader in applying augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and AI to solve real-world enterprise problems. Drawing from her deep experience in aerospace and immersive tech, Shelley focuses on removing barriers to adoption so organizations can harness these tools for measurable impact.Key Takeaways:Bridging the Gap: Shelley helps enterprises move XR and AI initiatives from pilot experiments to full-scale deployment, addressing both technical and organizational hurdles.User-Centered Design: Successful adoption starts by understanding the needs of frontline workers, creating intuitive tools that integrate seamlessly into their workflows.Proof Through Value: She advises starting with a specific, high-impact use case to generate measurable ROI — building momentum and internal champions for broader rollout.Change Management: Technology alone is not the answer; leadership buy-in, training, and cultural readiness are critical for lasting transformation.Her mission with Wizard Wells is to demystify emerging tech for leaders, help them identify where these tools can solve real problems, and remove the friction points that keep innovations stuck in “pilot purgatory.”About Shelley Peterson, Wizard Wells Shelley Peterson is a pioneer in the XR industry, with decades of experience demonstrating the power of immersive technology across civil, commercial, and defense programs, including Lockheed Martin’s space initiatives. As a former Director in Microsoft’s Mixed Reality organization, she developed strategies to drive ROI and impactful outcomes for industry, government, and education.Shelley’s career began early—earning her mathematics and physics degree young and teaching college math at just 20. She went on to lead innovations in military aircraft training, electronic warfare, and satellite systems, and today serves on the Barbara Bush Foundation Technology Advisory Board, the AWE Advisory Committee, SMU's Advisory Council, and the HarvardXR Advisory Board.Her work has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal, and she continues to inspire the next generation through STEM outreach.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.

Dr. Diane Bowser is Senior Manager of Emerging Technologies at Lenovo and founder of CodeReal, bringing a rare blend of R&D leadership, arts background, and startup hustle to the world of XR (extended reality) and wearables. Key Takeaways:Bridging Startup and Enterprise: Diane operates at the intersection of nimble startup energy (CodeReal) and scale-driven corporate innovation (Lenovo). She encourages founders to blend creative, non-technical perspectives with technical knowhow.Making Innovation Human: Her goal is building technologies (especially wearables and XR) that respect users' privacy, data, and trust—extending Lenovo’s reputation for security into new product lines.From Arts to Tech: Diane credits her arts background for resilience, negotiation skills, and a user-centric approach—highlighting how creative, non-traditional founders can thrive in tech if paired with the right collaborators.Focus & Letting Go: She shares the importance of time-blocking, realistic metrics, and having the humility to let go of bad ideas (or mismatched team members) to focus on what works, both for individual startups and within global R&D.Diane’s journey spans classical music, philosophy, teaching, and company-building, united by a drive to break barriers and make technology human-centric. Her story is one of continual reinvention, boundary-crossing, and championing both technological progress and the people behind it.About Dr. Diane Bowser, PhDDr. Diane Bowser, PhD is a Senior Manager guiding Lenovo’s Emerging Software UX Team. The Emerging Software UX Team designs experiences for new technologies, AI, and XR hardware products from inception to two years as they enter Lenovo’s commercial product portfolio.For 2025-26, her work centers on building next-generation AI and Spatial XR technologies. The Emerging Software UX team looks forward to new lighter spatial form factors in XR and agentic AI in spatial computing with integration into the commercial Think Series hardware. Before joining Lenovo, Diane was, and is, a co-founder of CodeReal, LLC, a company that develops augmented reality (AR), mixed-reality (MR), and virtual reality (VR) applications for companies, institutions, and manufacturers that require targeted spatial components.As an academic (Ph.D. in Philosophy, AOC - Technology), Diane spent 20 years teaching in various public and private institutions at the university level. Most notably Clarion University and the University of Pittsburgh where a technology prototyping class inspired her to work exclusively with start-ups over the last decade to seed business growth in 3D design, augmented reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality enterprise-level ventures.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.

Christina Heller is an Senior Producer at Meta Reality Labs Entertainment and multimedia producer with over 11 years of experience in XR innovation.From launching two startups—VR Playhouse and Meta Stage—to producing indie film "Unexpected Treasures," Christina embodies the creative spirit that drives breakthrough storytelling across emerging media platforms. Key Takeaways:Technology as Enhancement, Not Escape: Christina focuses on how VR can improve people's real-world experiences—from fitness and meditation to front-row concert access—rather than providing mere escapism.The Builder's Advantage During Troughs: While markets fluctuate through hype cycles, builders consistently see technology improving. Christina emphasizes that "troughs of disillusionment" are actually when the most meaningful innovation happens.Collaborative Leadership in Creative Media: Whether producing VR experiences or indie films, Christina prioritizes team dynamics, good vibes, and appreciation throughout the creative process, recognizing that impact happens in the journey as much as the destination.Embrace Strategic Naivete: Christina's approach combines confidence with comfort in the unknown—diving into new mediums knowing she'll become an expert through the doing, while being smart enough to accept help where needed.Community-Driven Storytelling: Her latest film "Unexpected Treasures" is rooted in local Joshua Tree alien folklore and shot entirely in her community, demonstrating how authentic stories emerge from what you know and where you belong.Christina's work spans from helping millions find wellness through VR fitness apps like Fit XR and meditation through Tripp, to bringing fans closer to their favorite artists through immersive concerts. Her indie film represents a return to "flatties" (2D films) while maintaining her commitment to community-centered storytelling and the XR creator ecosystem she calls "absolutely obsessed with."About Christina HellerChristina is a multimedia producer and entrepreneur with a passion for creative technology. For the past decade she has led teams and created projects for virtual and augmented reality. She is currently a Senior Producer at Meta for the Reality Labs Entertainment team.Christina was the founding CEO of Metastage from 2018 - 2023. During that time, Metastage completed over 200 productions with major brands and award winning projects, including two Emmy nominations. Prior to leading Metastage, Christina was the CEO of VR Playhouse, an immersive content company with projects featured at SXSW, Sundance, and Festival de Cannes. She is a recipient of the Advanced Imaging Society's Distinguished Leadership in Technology Award (2018), an AWE XR Hall of Fame inductee (2024), one of 2024's top "Women of the Future" and was named in the Huffington Post as one of 5 women changing the virtual reality scene. 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.

Jim Keyes, bestselling author of “Education is Freedom” and former CEO of Blockbuster and 7-Eleven, is a living example of how access to knowledge can transform a life. Jim’s journey began in a tumultuous, disrupted household, where independence was forced on him at an early age. Rather than letting these disadvantages define him, Jim embraced education—not to climb the professional ladder, but as the ultimate pathway to freedom: freedom of choice, freedom to chart his own course, and freedom from obligation to anyone or anything.Key TakeawaysEducation = Freedom: Learning isn’t just for jobs or money; it provides the ultimate freedom to choose your own path and live adventurously.Turning Disadvantage into Agency: Growing up in a disrupted home gave Jim a unique drive for independence, realized through continual self-education.Self-Reliance through Knowledge: The more you learn, the less you depend on others’ approval or authority, especially in uncertain times.Resilience Over Resentment: Facing public criticism and hardship (even at the Fortune 500 level) is easier with a mindset focused on learning and adaptability.The Power of Curiosity: The single “secret code” to success is staying curious and committed to personal growth at every stage of life.Jim credits his resilience and self-reliance to his pursuit of learning. He explains that education allowed him to sustain his independence, providing the flexibility to navigate both personal and professional obstacles. Jim’s perspective reframes adversity as a kind of advantage: growing up with less meant greater agency, drive, and the realization that knowledge—and not just money or titles—enables a truly adventurous and autonomous life.About James KeyesJames W. Keyes is known internationally as a business and social change agent. Currently spearheading several initiatives in the tech, art, and education space, his career has included serving as Chief Executive Officer of two Fortune 500 companies, 7-Eleven, Inc. and Blockbuster, Inc., and serving on numerous civic boards. Now, a best-selling author, Keyes has written Education is Freedom: The Future is In Your Hands.  Coming from humble beginnings in the small town of Grafton, Massachusetts, Jim’s father taught him “the absolute key to freedom is to learn as much as you can, every day of your life”. Keyes majored in political science at College of the Holy Cross, and graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned a MBA degree from Columbia University in New York, and went on to establish himself in corporate America.  On his quest of lifelong learning, and passionate about aerospace and aviation, Keyes has been a pilot for over 40 years. He is “single-pilot” certified in Textron C525 series Citation Jets, and is also certified to fly helicopters and floatplanes. He is a skilled sculptor, painter, musician, and composer. 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.

Nils Pihl is the CEO and founder of Auki Labs, a deep-tech company redefining how augmented reality (AR) can power meaningful social and business experiences. What started in 2019 as a passion project to create AR overlays for tabletop games like Warhammer quickly evolved into a multimillion-dollar company at the forefront of spatial computing. Nils shares his conviction that new business models and decentralized technology will fundamentally reshape software—and even capitalism itself.Key TakeawaysStart Small, Think Big: Auki Labs began with playful AR overlays for games but scaled quickly by focusing on community ownership and decentralized models.Decentralization is the Future: True value creation in software will come from platforms owned and operated by their users, not just corporations.Augmented Reality, Real Impact: AR is at its best when it enhances live, shared experiences—turning the virtual into a collaborative tool for everyday life and business.Innovation Through Openness: Embracing open-source and collective funding accelerates innovation and broadens the impact of new technology.Beyond the technology, Nils’s philosophy challenges traditional business frameworks: he explores open-source, collective governance, and decentralized funding models as the future of innovation. He remains motivated by the “software upgrade of capitalism,” aiming to empower people—not just companies—through technology that invites participation, not just passive consumption.About Nils PihilNils Pihl is an entrepreneur, behavioral engineer, and social transhumanist with a deep focus on the intersection of modern technology and human behavior. Nils founded Auki Labs which is advancing the development of the Auki Network and posemesh protocol, a decentralized machine perception network designed to help devices, robots, and embodied and physical AI perceive and interact with the world around it through a shared understanding of space. A thought leader in the realms of technology and memetics, Nils applies his expertise in meme theory, game theory, and behavioral psychology to craft compelling narratives that shape the path of the AI revolution, future of augmented reality, and the acceleration of robotic technologies. About The Glow UpA "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.At The 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.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.