This post has been eight years in the making.
In September of 2016, seeking a new direction, I enrolled in the SMDP program for underrepresented students while I was completing my Master of Translational Medicine - UCB & UCSF. At the age of 36, I was accepted and traveled to Minneapolis to explore MedTech at AdvaMed's annual conference. While attending a session, I saw Paul Grand introduce the MedTech Innovator program and witnessed Jamie Haggard from Green Sun Medical win the competition. A lightbulb went off: I could envision myself bringing scientific projects to millions of people in need, the ultimate fulfillment for a physician. Although I was the only one who looked or spoke like me in the room, it didn't deter me. I'm accustomed to being the outlier.
Building Samay has been a challenging but rewarding journey. Yesterday, we were selected as the #GrandPrize winner among other four formidable finalists: Caitlin Morse, a half-Mexican red hair power house who's raised $5M and it's close to get FDA clearance for her CSF solution, Marc-Joseph Antonini, a brilliant French-born Massachusetts Institute of Technology grad who's been working on a very sophisticated technology for endovascular neurotherapies for the past 10 years; David N Constantine, my number one cheerleader in the backstage, he's building a very complex product for one of the most underlooked urogenital problems, incontinence; and Jennifer Fried, a highly successful female founder-VC spinning out her second university invention, she was our strongest contender. People told me I won because I spoke from the heart and had a clear use of funds plan. It's true, Samay is my life's legacy, and I've worked very hard to try to be the best CEO. That said, I couldn't be a good CEO without my team's execution, we had the most traction!
I'm immensely grateful to those who believed in me and supported me with time, money, or connections. This win is for Latin Americans. Seeing myself and Ricardo Garcia holding that gigantic check is incredibly inspiring!
#MedTechInnovator #MedTechCon #MTC24
Cc: Scott May, Elisabeth Valerio, Dustielyn Savage, Verna Manty Rodriguez, Patrick Brennan, Scott Whitaker, Pablo Fernandez Gumucio, Cristian Hernandez-Cuevas, Paola Calvachi Prieto MD, MBI, Nicole Black, PhD, Jeff June, Anna Lisa Somera, Alex Ballatori, Sandra Saldana, PhD, MBA, Kathryn Zavala, Daphne Radfar, Jerry Ciolino, Brian Benson, Rhonda Shrader, Darren Cooke, Samaan Rafeq, MD, MBA, Sebastian Bachmann, Robin Blankenbaker, Adam Jacobs, Joe Civiello, Daniel Simpson, RAC.