David Weingard is the founder and CEO of Fit4D, a company whose mission is to improve the lives of people with Diabetes and other chronic conditions. David was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, at the age of 36, while training for a survival race. A veteran of numerous running and triathlons races (including Ironman triathlons consisting of a 2.4M swim, 112M bike and 26.2M run), David committed to rebuild his life and provide positive energy to the diabetes community while coping with the condition on a 24×7 basis. David’s personal experience receiving meaningful education and support from a Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) sparked the idea for Fit4D to leverage technology to scale the patient reach of adherence and outcome improvement programs for pharmaceutical, payer and provider organizations. In 2008, David left Microsoft to found Fit4D, building on his career as an executive in the technology sector. David has a BA in Computer Science and a MBA in Marketing.
Elizabeth Feinstone is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yoga on the Fly, a company that delivers empirically informed yoga classes using numbered mats, wireless headphones, and an iPad app to mediate effects of acute and chronic health conditions. As a cancer survivor living with long-term effects of chemotherapy, Elizabeth understands the need for products that increase the quality of life of people living with chronic conditions. In addition to personal training and teaching yoga and meditation in New York City, she has explored complementary and alternative therapies for chronic disease, receiving a BS in Exercise Science from George Washington University and an MPH in Health Promotion from Columbia University. Personal experiences and education have empowered her to share her own self-healing principles with others. Elizabeth believes everyone can improve their own quality of life themselves, through exercise and healthy living, by tapping into the body’s innate ability to heal itself.
Shai Rozen is the co-founder & CMO at Suggestic Serial entrepreneur, a marketing guy, and a product builder. At a co-founder at Suggestic, he use artificial intelligence to tackle health and nutrition. He is passionate about putting an end to disease and the inevitability of immortality.Best advice ever received: don’t panic.
Luka Zupancic is the founder of Easycarb, a project devoted to revolutionize the outdated and complex process of carbohydrate management in diabetes. Being affected by the disease in his professional and personal life, he quickly realized how extremely inefficient the current standard for tracking carbs is, despite it being key for preventing health complications. Luka obtained his MSc degree in Regenerative Medicine at the University of Applied Sciences in Vienna and had worked as a researcher in the biomedical field, prior to switching to entrepreneurship. Apart from his scientific endeavors, his interests include innovative ventures and technology, clinical nutrition and everything sports-related.
Elizabeth Sacco is the founder of Diabetic Dabs® Inc. A stay-at-home mom turned entrepreneur, Liz developed the concept of Diabetic Dabs® after her son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in 2011. While adjusting to the change in lifestyle and facing the challenges associated with diabetes, Liz realized there was a missing component to the blood glucose testing process. Frustrated by not being able to find an easy and efficient solution to removing the excess blood from the finger after testing, Liz took the matters into her own hands to resolve this issue. She conceived, developed, and patented Diabetic Dabs®. Diabetic Dabs® are an ideal companion product to the diabetes monitoring and diagnostic devices. Dabs® are non-toxic, highly absorbent sheets that are designed to fit conveniently into any blood glucose testing kit with its adhesive backing. Dabs® provide the most hygienic method of blood removal and disposal.
Fathi Abdelsalam founded AkibaH while he was finishing his graduate studies at Cornell University. The team committed itself to finding a way to improve the lives of people with diabetes after losing several of their loved ones to the condition and watching many others struggle with its complications. He is very passionate about developing solutions that have substantial social and economic impact. Fathi is a member of several entrepreneurial communities, including Techstars, Sprint Accelerator, Start-Up Chile, Jumpstart Foundry, Parallel 18, and Seamless IoT. He has an M.P.A. in Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development from Cornell, and dual bachelor degrees in Industrial Engineering and Economics from Florida State. He is also a former senior-level Patent Examiner at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, where he was immersed in the latest, cutting-edge software and high-tech inventions. In his spare time, he loves to travel and explore, having visited all six habitable continents, and lived in Japan, Turkey, Colombia, Chile, and Puerto Rico.
Jakob Dahl Thomsen is co-founder and CEO of Dukada Ltd., a Danish company established in 2012 that produces add-ons for insulin pens. “Dukada” is a contraction of “Yes, you can” in Danish. The mission is to make life with diabetes easier, based on user experience. Jakob has been living with T1D for more than 40 years. Besides the present responsibilities for Dukada, he has worked both as independent lawyer and as diplomat for the Danish Foreign Service with postings on several locations around the world. User inputs from these changing environments have inspired the development of the Dukada products. A network of people living with diabetes contributes to the Dukada concept development. On the technical level, Dukada is assisted by, amongst others, experts connected to the Science and Technology Park at the Technical University of Denmark.
Christer Busch is an MD, PhD, and senior professor at The Department of Surgical Sciences at Uppsala University Hospital. He is also the inventor of the STEPIT pedal device, which allows your to activate your calf muscles while you sit. STEPIT has been studied in diabetic patients in collaboration with professor Kerstin Brismar and Dr Leon Jonker, UK as well as professor David Bergqvist, vascular surgeon, Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden. Busch specialized in urological pathology and was European Vice President of the International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) 1991-1997 President (ISUP), 1997-2002 Professor of pathology, University of Tromsö, Norway, 2002-2008 adjunct professor of uropathology, University of Uppsala, Sweden, 2013 Senior professor at the Department of Surgical Sciences University Hospital, Uppsala. Busch has published over 240 peer reviewed articles, and has a background in thrombosis and vascular endothelial research.
Liam was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2002 and wants to develop low-cost solutions to improve health outcomes for people with diabetes through health behavior change. Liam founded Adelie Health in 2016 to use insights from behavioral economics to improve health outcomes for people with diabetes. Liam is close to completing his Ph.D. in health economics at the University of Aberdeen which investigates how behavioral economics can help us understand individual food choices. Liam now wants to apply these insights to build innovative devices to help people with type 1 diabetes. Liam has a BA in Economics and Sociology & Politics, and an MSc in health economics from the National University of Ireland, Galway.
Peter and his team are developing a Smart Diabetes App that intelligently pick up patterns in the diabetics data and uses it for personalized recommendations. Peter is a born entrepreneur. He makes things happen, sees opportunities, and is good at motivating people around him. Peter has a Bachelors in innovation and entrepreneurship as well as several years of experience running businesses. Peter grew up with type 1 diabetes. His father was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1989 at the age of 27 and Peter got diagnosed with type 1 in 2010, at the age of 27.