Two significant and exciting leaps in healthtech in 2020

In the face of the seemingly ever-growing set of challenges facing the global community, there are positive and encouraging news out of science & tech that give hope for a brighter future for all.

Two really exciting advances in healthcare technology, that I think are signs of monumental advances for medical care, are these following two stories that came out this January 2020:

https://www.healthimaging.com/topics/healthcare-economics/fda-clear-worlds-first-portable-mri

https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/20/machine-learning-finds-novel-antibiotic-able-to-kill-superbugs/

Inspired by this tough-tech player

Following up on my prior post re: hard / tough tech, I wanted to highlight one emerging biotech (true bioengineering really) player that I’m cheering for, based on its potential to provide never-before available options for societal wellbeing and healthcare - for all the future generations to come.

It’s inspiring to follow the news about and evolution of this team, as they appear:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2019/05/15/microbe-hacker-ginkgo-bioworks-pushes-further-into-medicine-with-acquisition-of-genome-mining-platform-warp-drive-bio-revolution-medicines-and-antibiotics-discovery-deal-with-roche/#34d2b08d2879

Hard tech and true disruption

Some tech companies claim they are “disruptive” or “innovative”, but it is really the ones that make it an absolute no brainer for us to adopt their technology to better our every day. These proliferate rather quickly and in just a few years, make it seem to all of us that it would be really silly to go back to the way we used to run our days or operate our teams.

Starry is one of them.

Their founder, Chet Kanojia, has a great insight about “hard tech”, that is also a thought that all software engineers working on non-critical consumer and enterprise apps should keep in mind.

“I have a new respect for Tesla and those companies who do really hard shit,” Kanojia said. “It’s not like building an app that you can just stick on an AWS server.”"

http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2019/04/13/starry-new-york

The good news for companies like Starry, is that, by solving the tough problems - they also build a great moat to defend their business.