EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator Finale

so please be on mute and have a great show let me put myself on mute do [Music] do [Music] [Music] boom [Music] so [Music] um [Music] bye [Music] do [Music] do [Music] hello and welcome to our fourth empowered to serve business accelerator i'm nancy brown chief executive officer of the american heart association and we're so delighted to have you with us this afternoon or this evening depending on where you're at at the american heart association we believe that every person deserves the opportunity for a full healthy life for decades we have worked to address health inequity by overcoming major barriers like social determinants of health structural racism and rural health challenges because we know that they have a significant impact on the hearts and the brains of so many people in this country our empowered to empower to serve business accelerator is just one way we're delivering on this commitment and we're so proud to partner with local change makers who are inspiring health solutions tonight as we honor this impressive slate of community innovators we also salute our empowered accelerator alumni who took action amid the covenant pandemic and social unrest with innovative solutions in communities across america providing access to healthy food housing and health care i'm honored to introduce someone who knows all about creating better health outcomes in communities please give a warm welcome to dr jeremy gauze founder of the link market and a 2019 empowered to serve business accelerator grantee jeremy hey jeremy you're on mute sir sorry about that uh nancy it's good to see you all uh you see you again and and uh congratulations to everyone who's a part of this process uh apologies if one of these pages goes off i'm on call but tonight was too important for for me to pass up an opportunity to share my experiences going through the the business accelerator if only to to inspire you all as current participants to keep going uh so again my name is jeremy i'm a surgeon and a social entrepreneur and a couple of years ago i moved from houston where i'm from to st louis for medical school and i grew really frustrated seeing the signs of food insecurity diabetes heart disease strokes folks who had limited access to healthy affordable food and use that frustration as motivation to make a difference in the city of saint louis so i convinced the city to give me a bus and turn that into a grocery store to help food desert communities but when that wasn't enough we took shipping containers and turned those into grocery stores putting them at transit stations throughout the city and when that wasn't enough we bought a mail truck from the united states postal service and started offering free grocery delivery to everyone in need i'm so thankful that through our participation in the american heart association's empowered to serve grant competition that we were ultimately funded and with that funding now on the precipice of opening our first ever brick and mortar grocery store in the heart of a government subsidized housing project one of the first of its kind and it's only because of the the funding that came through the empowered to serve accelerator but also because of the networking opportunity that this represents not one but one of a number of grocery stores that we're opening this year so to everyone participating this year whether you are funded or not i i do hope that you will continue to to see your commitment through because the work is is so very important thank you again for this opportunity to share a bit of our journey and our story jeremy thank you always and it seems like we're always bringing you off of uh other medical service to your wonderful patients but thank you for being with us tonight thank you for sharing your incredible work we continue to be energized by all you've accomplished and all you will accomplish in the future and really this is what the empowered accelerator is all about lifting up communities with people just like jeremy who are helping people live healthy lives if you're watching at home and you'd like to learn more please visit us at empoweredtoserve.org and now it's with my great personal pleasure that i introduce our incredible mc for the evening sharon epperson sharon is a wonderful aha volunteer and also the senior personal finance correspondent for cnbc sharon i'm going to turn the program over to you nancy thank you so much i am truly delighted to be here this evening and i'm really appreciative to nancy as well as the american heart association and american stroke association for encouraging me to get involved and to be in volunteer this organization brings together and this event in particular brings together two of my passions business journalism covering business news as well as being a health and wellness advocate and i became a health and wellness advocate after frankly being healthier and surviving a stroke myself i had a hemorrhagic stroke in 2016 um after having a ruptured brain aneurysm while i was exercising that i was completely unexpected and i thought that i was in perfect health but my life came to a full stop my business journalism career came to a full stop for a year as i learned to walk again as i learned to balance as i learned to balance a checkbook which for a personal finance journalist is essential to be able to do i also took that time to learn about what a hemorrhagic stroke is to learn what a brain brain aneurysm is and while loved ones go through an emergency and traumatic experience at that time talking to doctors figuring things out when you're going through it you don't have time for that and so i did my research as the reporter that i've been for decades afterward and that's where i learned about the wealth of information that is available from the american heart association about stroke about hemorrhagic stroke which is a small type of stroke that many people don't know about because only a small percentage of stroke victims have a hemorrhagic stroke but it is one that can be most deadly it is one that adversely impacts the black community women and people in their 40s and 50s also people who have a genetic disposition because of family history i checked all of those boxes so i'm eager to be part of an organization that not only raises awareness but also does it in a way that is really in tune with what i do which is to share business stories that reflect our personal lives and that's what you're going to hear tonight so that's a small part of my story i am delighted tonight as i've been following the candidates stories online to figure out who's going to end up with a grant tonight that's not my call we have some fabulous judges you'll meet in a few moments who are going to do that but i do want to explain to you a little bit about the american heart association's empowered to serve business accelerator program it's an intense training and grant opportunity and it's designed to help solve health disparities through the accelerated the american heart association empowers entrepreneurs startups and non-profits like the candidates that you're going to meet tonight and the objective is to build powerful partnerships that will uplift communities around the country keep in mind that while we're talking about this accelerator program we're also talking about finding ways to come up with community-centered solutions that will change behaviors expand access to resources and improve long-term health by overcoming systemic challenges now the candidates have gone through a rigorous eight-week curriculum that focused on strengthening their business models the core curriculum instructs on design thinking customer discovery market positioning brand development and fundraising to create sustainable and scalable solutions with that being said i want to test your knowledge first actually we all want to figure out how much we know and what we don't know we have some trivia questions that we're going to have throughout this program and the first thing that you need to do on your smartphone is to go to the number type in the number 22333 and then text aha polling american heart association aha and then polling to the number two two three three once you've done that then you'll be able to add your answer to the question that is there and the question is in case you're not seeing it is only what percentage of black business owners see their requests for a bank loan approved in their first year of business so we're gonna see what you all said it's really interesting to watch this real time and figure out who is saying it's ten percent who's saying it's one percent who's saying it's 45 25 none of the above so it looks like the majority of you believe it's b one percent but then wait a minute ten percent we have it going we're going to um it's it keeps going back and forth because everybody's trying to put their answers in i'm gonna share with you the answer in a few moments but i want to get first to start the evening with an introduction of our judges if this is you know my teaser yeah you don't get to know if you're right or not until you listen from the judges and then i'll be oh there we did one percent so those of you that said one percent you got it right only one percent of black business owners see their bank loans approved in their first year of business so it may be surprising to some of you but those who are have been working in this accelerator program part of what they're doing is trying to solve some of these disparities that we're seeing i want to start the evening now with a or continue the evening i should say with the introduction of our judges and then we're going to see a video about the empower to serve business accelerator program and then our finalists are going to present their innovative concepts so i want to make sure that you're able to watch all of their stories and you can vote for your favorite after the pitches are completed nicole sapio the executive vice president of the eastern states region for the american heart association that includes 13 states including my home state and the state i live in and the district of columbia she's going to join us for a few moments of reflection as the judges in fact take the time to cast their votes for the top two grand awards and then we're going to conclude the evening with our three judges announcing the forty thousand dollar fifteen thousand dollar and five fan favorite grants so now let's time to get to our judges we have three extraordinary influencers who have a very difficult task tonight of selecting the grantees let me introduce our judges right now i want to start with shelley bell shelley is a system disruptor business strategist she moves ideas to profit while empowering people to live more authentically as a cultural translator she connects entrepreneurs investors and corporations to diversify their talent pipeline increase equity and grow their brands shelley it's great to have you here thank you i'm so excited to be here um as a founder and ceo of black girl ventures you know health is wealth and so i'm the efforts that the american heart association are doing to couple business to find innovators to find innovation and to get funding to these business owners is extremely extraordinary that's fantastic we're glad you're here i also want to introduce brian holloway he's a board member for the american heart association's communications and marketing coordinating committee and he's also a knowledgeable strategy technology and business transformation consultant brian has a demonstrated reputation for building collaborative relationships implementing transformative change projects and activating client performance and team engagement brian another active volunteer i'm trying to follow in your footsteps i'm so glad to be with you here yeah thank you so much for having me brian holloway as you mentioned principal at slalom consulting at slalom we believe in a world where every person loves their work in life and through that experience i've had the privilege to work a good bid in the healthcare sector our frontline workers are our heroes during this pandemic but they're working in a system that is really geared towards treating illness and so that's why it's so important that the work that the american heart association is doing the work that the individual candidates you're going to hear from today are doing uh to be able to promote wellness try to rid our world of the health disparities that we see that are so prevalent and honestly through this experience be inspired um by what you're hearing from our candidates you have some amazing candidates and some amazing ideas so i hope you enjoy the the experience just like i have thank you brian thank you brian we also have some amazing judges our third judge is an author professor lecturer public speaker entrepreneur music executive artist manager fighter and survivor all of those are words that we will use to sum up the life and career of our final judge matthew knowles dr knowles is widely recognized in the entertainment industry for his effective approach in developing and promoting award-winning artists and he has garnered countless awards for his achievements in business the music industry philanthropy and community partnerships dr knowles it's great to have you here tonight thank you sarah and thank you so much you know i've had the opportunity to work with the american heart association and my friend and i put emphasis on that my friend nancy brown for now over 20 years and it gives me just great pleasure as a college educator to be part of this evening this business accelerator and i checked some of your boxes sharon as uh my father my grandfather both uh passed away from um different types of heart diseases and especially my drive and passion and as i look at the mortality rate especially for black men in both heart disease and cancer and as a cancer survivor i i really support the american heart association so thank you for giving me this opportunity this evening and i look forward to seeing who's going to win this tonight exactly exactly well we appreciate each of you judges for volunteering your time and support to the accelerator and hopefully you're all enjoying the evening and eager to see who's going to win this tonight but we have another trick i almost said trick not trick but quick trivia question for you um our second question is about food deserts which are geographic areas around the country where access to affordable healthy food options like fresh fruits and vegetables is limited or not non-existent because grocery stores are too far away so i wanted to ask you about how many people how many million people live in food deserts and again you're texting your answer to the number two two three three three and if you are just starting you need to have aha polling in there so that you can submit your answer and i'm looking at people they're they're doing it is it 7 million 50 million no one thinks it's 100 million 23 and a half million or none of the above what do you think the answer is well i don't want to give it to you i want to make sure that you have a chance to find the answer yourself no googling though try to try to guess it and then we'll just see we won't know we won't know if you got it right or wrong only you'll know that and do we have it what do what do we have it do we have it 23 and a half million people in the united states live in food deserts so again these are issues that this program is addressing directly what these social innovators are doing and social entrepreneurs are doing is to really help to solve some of these structural and systemic issues i know you're eagerly awaiting the story pitches from of the people who are waiting to see if they're going to become the grant winners but i want to first take a quick look at what this business accelerator program is all about take a look in the united states nearly half of all adults have some form of cardiovascular disease often caused by the lack of access to the most basic needs needs such as healthy food clean air and drinking water quality education transportation employment and housing the american heart association is committed to making a difference in community health as a result the empowered to serve business accelerator supports entrepreneurs who design solutions to improve health in their under-resourced communities our goal to address health disparities and create health equity for all over the past four years the business accelerator has trained close to 50 social entrepreneurs nationwide and provided over half a million dollars in grant funding media outlets such as cnn and fast company magazine have recognized and highlighted the great work our candidates have accomplished now in the midst of the global pandemic our communities are experiencing even more challenges the american heart association is proud to support uplift and help scale innovative solutions and the change makers behind them during this difficult time it is our goal to find the brightest social innovators around the world we are excited to support and help scale the visionary ideas of the entrepreneurs who will be sharing their ideas with all of us today get ready to be inspired and so i'm sure you're all inspired right now and you want to vote and you don't not sure if you did vote or you if you can vote again yes you can vote now you can vote for your favorite candidate right now voting is going to stay open until almost to the end of this program so until nicole's reflection so we want you to vote continue to vote and now we're going to continue with the show our first innovator is a champion barrel racer yeah you heard that right and she is special program director at safebeat melissa strong it's a pleasure to be here tonight to be able to speak on behalf of safebeat and present preventative heart screening we currently serve in the south georgia and north florida region where our tea is sweet the sun is always hot and bless your heart doesn't mean what you think it does so even though we serve in the sunshine state that doesn't mean that we're without rainy days in fact seven thousand young people die every single year due to sudden cardiac arrest o.j reese a rising senior at statesboro high school was playing in a tournament with the george's sons just a few minutes into that game and he collapsed gone at 17 years old recently keontae johnson a forward with the florida gators was playing in a game against the florida state seminoles when he collapsed he had no warnings or symptoms that his heart had contracted a deadly virus due to covid but thankfully he's now at home recovering but then there's me i'm a walking talking miracle i was born with an arrhythmia and an extra electrical pathway in my heart that went undetected for years my physician was baffled that my heart hadn't exploded but because of a procedure i survived and because i survived i'm dedicating my life to make sure that other kids have the opportunity to survive a preventative heart screening can stop an avoidable death in its tracks it can alter the path of a young person's life in talking with our founder jane vining she shared with me about the loss of her son and she said when you experience a loss like that it can take you in one or two ways you can not care about what happens tomorrow or you can find a way to be a contributor to life and i am so glad that she founded safebeat and made a way to be a contributor to life and i feel the same is true about surviving a heart condition i can act as if it didn't happen to me or i can do something to make a difference for others and that's what i'm trying to do so in the last two years safebeat has provided 1182 preventative heart screenings we have caught seven conditions that could have been fatal but really we face two major challenges in providing screenings that's cost and scale first the cost it's really expensive a preventative heart screening is considered elective and most insurance companies won't cover any of the cost unless it's ordered by a doctor but doctors don't usually order them if there's not symptoms but what about those that don't have symptoms like chianti and oj this is why safebeat offers our preventative heart screenings to any middle and high school student regardless of their insurance coverage through fundraising grants and community support we offer these at no cost to the student um you know we also collaborate with a medical partner that if follow-up is needed they'll work with anyone regardless of their ability to pay so utilizing volunteers and raising the funds we're able to offer them at no cost which takes a big portion of the burden off of the health care system and we're working to collaborate with a telehealth company so we can add more follow-up options the next is scale it's really hard to grow and to get it out there when people don't understand the need for this and you know we are doing our best to raise awareness and i feel like we've come up with some really creative ways to do that and one is collaborating with a major league baseball team like i'm so excited about that it's huge because it opens up two other states to our service area that's amazing that's a lot more people we can reach we're also working with a band to write an awareness song and the screen my heart protect my passion challenge that i started in this accelerator has already reached 1872 people to date just three days ago in a neighboring county a 17 year old boy collapsed on the tennis court and i feel like doctors in his area failed him because he's been a competitive swimmer since he was 10 years old he's still in the icu and we're praying that he recovers but this doesn't need to happen this is why i fight so hard and i work every single day to make an impact and to have a difference in saving a young person's life thank you thank you melissa it is amazing how safebeat is helping to prevent sudden cardiac arrest in young people next up we have another change maker a freestyler dr joel acevedo with sharp focus i'm dr joel acevedo from the beautiful island puerto rico i'm the founder of char focus we use virtual reality a platform to organize the brain of people suffering from adhd our purpose is to keep every mind sharp our mission is to redirect the energies of youth at risk and help them to make better decisions in puerto rico there are over 100 kids in the juvenile facilities their ages range from 50 to 20. 48 of them are uh have adhd they they are there for a variety of reasons including acting out uh because of on untreated adhd unfortunately a third of them attempt suicide and self-mutilation a normal heart beats 17 times per minute people with adhd choke arrhythmias and hypertension there they are more likely to develop heart disease uh let me tell you about uh michael he's 17. and uh he's a freestyle writer like me wait you didn't know that yeah in addition of being a neuroscientist i am a true straight freestyler more than that later maybe when i when uh when i first met him he started to talk a lot of uh thing a lot of topic with about threat and with uncontrollable energy uh going back and forth um uh with with his side uh loss so uh after using chart focus he uh after using chart focus which is a a control environment for people uh designed for people with adhd he can better organize his thought during this accelerator we decided to scale the work we did with him to over 52 minutes after a month working with these kids guess what they showed between 15 to 24 of improvement in their main cognitive skills which are important to regulate their impulses and emotions even over soon we saw the happiness in their faces this makes this uh this mission worthy we create a social impact movement we create a social impact impact movement and captured the attention of the natural juvenile defender center in washington dc telemundo uh mit an el nuevo dia local uh newspaper and the uh recently they featured us talking about our challenge talking about our mission talking about uh the empowered to serve and the challenge and uh we even captured the attention of uh urban artists like uh evie queen and residential winner of more than 30 grammy awards a local popular actress nor will fragoso help us to connect students from a private school with juveniles our biggest lesson was that what we encourage here in puerto rico is a persistent problem across the united states it's a persistent program across the united states uh there are over 48 000 kids in juvenile facilities in the united states 42 percent of boy 35 percent of her of which are black uh 500 of them less than 12 years old we're ready to scale this grant will help us to scale with the united states-based youth institutions we have created a great relationship with the national juvenile defender center in washington dc and this program will help and transform this kid's life i know firsthand the difficulties of adhd i could have been one of those kids i had the chance to change please give give them the chance to change to help us to keep their mind focused thank you amazing joel it is an incredible way that you have created to make an impact now we're going to have another candidate conor connor schoen who is not only hiked to mount fiji to watch a sunrise but also started great time cafe i am so excited to be here i'm coming to you all from boston massachusetts and my organization break time is working to empower young adults experiencing homelessness to build sustainability in their lives while building resilience in their communities so i've actually always wanted to go into public service i'm at my my parents house right now and as you can see in the background um there are there are posters of some of my service heroes from over the years ever since i was 10 years old i wanted to work in the nonprofit world and i've always had a passion to support others because of all the privilege i've had in my life and the support i've had for my public school teachers my parents and everyone who has had an influence in making me who i am today when i got to college i really started to grapple with my identity and went through the process of coming out as gay and it was one of the most harrowing times in my life because i was dealing not only with challenges of wondering what other people were going to think about me but trying to accept who i was and one of the things that got me through that was working at a shelter for young adults experiencing homelessness called why do y the amazing young people in this shelter despite everything that had happened to them were so authentic about their identity and that inspired me as a young person to want to be more myself and to really authentically embrace who i am 40 of young adults experiencing homelessness identifies lgbtq plus 89 of young adults experiencing homelessness i identify as bypoc according to the national coalition to end homelessness these disproportionate rates of lgbtq plus and byprod members in the homeless community are larger there's a larger gap than in any other age group for young adults so 89 people of color in the young adult age cohort is larger than any of the other age cohorts so this is a pivotal moment in people's lives young people need investment young people need support and they're being forgotten and left behind every single day that passes where a young person is not getting the support they need every day that passes where a young person persons on the street increases their likelihood to have severe mental health illness to have a substance abuse disorder and a myriad of other health problems that that young person doesn't deserve i've been so fortunate to have people who invest in me and believed in me i lost friends when i came out but i didn't lose the support of my family and loved my family it is ridiculous and incredibly unjust that in this world young people like me don't get the opportunities and support they need to reach their full potential but that's why i created break time because this problem is solvable this problem does not have to exist in this modern world and what we're doing at break time is really working to see all the world's challenges in tandem what we see is we currently see a food insecurity crisis 59 increase in food insecurity in the state of massachusetts over 1 million people experiencing hunger this pandemic of hunger has spread nationwide and we don't have the workforce to address it food pantries are asking for more support they don't have the capacity to support all these additional people that are coming to them and we have this underemployed under invested in youth workforce who's looking for work for us at break time the solution is obvious we need to empower young adults experiencing homelessness to not only build sustainability in their lives but to truly build food resilience in their communities by doing that what we can achieve is we can create long-term success for our young people we can empower young people to have confidence in themselves and everything that they can achieve but we can also support those young adults in building resilience in their community in helping to achieve more food security in their community in improving health and nutrition in their community we see this model scaling quickly because it's replicable because it has double impact and because we're already seeing really big results so as part of the american heart association business accelerator break time launch what we're calling our core model which is all about taking cohorts of young people that we recruit from other organizations putting them through four weeks of leadership development job readiness and financial empowerment trainings and then launching them into job positions across greater boston working to build food resilience in their community we're looking to employ and empower 100 young people this year we already have contracts with a number of different food pantries across the city and with the support of the american heart association we can quickly scale this work so that no young person is left behind thank you connor you're so right young people are our future and as the mother of two teenagers i have been really touched by these first three concepts they're taking a look at how transformation can begin with equitable access for children and young adults and that is so very powerful make sure that you are voting right now for your favorites the voting is continuing and our next presenter is someone that you want to pay attention to as well this person has lived in six major cities in the u.s and

south america we're going to move on with chris timberla sorry chris chris temblador who is with los angeles food policy council chris we are the los angeles food policy council located in sunny california and we're addressing issues around healthy food access to make sure that healthy food options are available in low-income communities we're bringing together community residents and business leaders to focus in on creating a space for healthy food axles in food deserts i remember when i was a kid and riding my bike in this neighborhood for miles and miles and every time we would ride our bikes we would pass by many liquor stores and it was quite a while before we even saw a major grocery store that was over 30 years ago and not much has changed today i'm excited because we're bringing together residents and looking at the business model for a corner store and creating a market space inside and we're engaging residents through talking to them and using technology to find out what kind of fresh food would they like to see in market we've been able to do this with the american heart association's business accelerator and it's been amazing to discover some of the stories of local residents i remember talking to chandra one of the star owners and she mentioned that there was a resident that would come into the store and she had to go to five different markets just to get all the items she needed to feed her family for dinner now she's able to come into the store and often see shander talking to her and figuring out what else she might need so that the stoner can bring that in we've been able to talk to produce vendors who source local fresh foods and we've been able to engage them in conversations around what could be more cost effective so that families can feed their kids and have a dinner to eat we've also talked to non-profit partners in order to engage the conversation around what culture and connection means locally and it's been exciting to see the transformation of the stoner in the market i remember son sat mentioning how nowadays he's pushing back on some of the large corporations high sugar items because it just doesn't feel right with the new look of market and with the support of this accelerator we're really looking forward to bringing in more merchandisers we're looking to further leverage technology to understand consumer trends and we're further engaging local farmers to have conversations around how can we create not just a supply chain but a value chain where there's trust where there's communication and where community members feel connected and where there's a sense of belonging recently i read an article where large healthcare systems are investing in grocery stores they're actually opening up their own grocery stores because they realize that as a social determinant just having a grocery store with fresh food products makes a huge difference in the lives of local communities and right now with the kobe 19 pandemic it's so important to have access to fresh food and vegetables and right now is the time to make a difference because here in los angeles i believe that we're resilient and we're creative and we're able to find new ways in order to start conversations where it's not just about a corner store it's about getting back to those old days of knowing your neighbors by name knowing your local shop owner by name and being able to come in and have an environment where you can shop locally and you don't have to drive or walk more than a mile away in order to feed your family and i'm excited now that we're bringing these solutions together and community residents are talking about what's next and working forward to what's next here in los angeles thank you thank you so much chris and you really highlight why the trivia game we were playing earlier isn't a game 23 and a half million people live in food deserts and that's why you as a change maker are making such a difference already up next we have an illustrator and an innovator abigail kohler with recessivetech abigail hi my name is abby kohler and i'm the co-founder and ceo of recessive tech based in providence rhode island and my team is giving people the confidence and the capability to perform cpr when faced with sudden cardiac arrest while i was studying biomedical engineering at brown university i was lucky to have some really incredible and unique educational opportunities i observed in the or i shadowed and observed in the emergency department and i even received some training in medical and surgical illustration and it was during one of these opportunities when i overheard an emt talking about how difficult it is to do cpr and that makes a lot of sense for any adult when you're performing chest compressions you're aiming for 2 to 2.4 inches deep and that feels a lot different on an elderly person than it does on a young fit person so i continued to ask doctors and nurses about this and i learned that the problem is even worse for out of hospital cardiac arrest more than 90 of the people who have out of possible cardiac arrest don't survive them and that's because people notice 9-1-1 but they often freeze when they need to perform chest compressions that's because performing chest compressions are really scary even if someone does attempt chest compressions they're often timid and scared to press deep enough so this means a lot of the people who are dying are dying unnecessarily and really dying due to doubt and lack of confidence my co-founder and i found this really upsetting so we leaned on our engineering background to create now to write software that uses your phone uses the technology already in your phone to measure the depth and rate of chest compressions during cpr in real time and then give you feedback that's both audio and visual so it quite literally tells you it speaks to you and tells you how to adjust your contrast compressions uh and then you get that same feedback visually on the screen of your smartphone so it tells you whether you need to go faster slower deeper or shallower so we're currently using this as part of a training app that we've developed to teach people how to do cpr so people learn how to assess a situation learn how to give compressions and then actually train using the software we've developed while getting real-time feedback they can practice their compressions on any number of household objects and they can do this entirely remotely so it's the most accessible and affordable cpr training ever because you can get it right on your smartphone we've been testing this locally with doctors teachers fitness writers and many more and people are loving our program we had someone say that they actually got to see it and steal their chest compressions and know that they could do it correctly if necessary we also had another person say that they would never go back to a traditional cpr training class after trying our app but we want to use this software we want to use this audio visual cpr feedback in more than just training we want to make it so that it's suitable for use on real people during real emergencies but this will require us to get fda clearance which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to achieve but my team is really dedicated to this because we think everyone should have access to high quality tools that enable us to give good quality care so receiving this grant would mean that my team could bring accessible affordable cpr training to far more people and we could make concrete steps towards fda clearance for our real-time response app i have a really dedicated team of five team members one of whom is a doctor who has more than 30 years of experience practicing medicine another is a brilliant marketing expert who's helping us get our idea in the hands of as many people as possible and my co-founder and i are both engineers so we have the technical experience necessary to bring this to market so we've also received a tremendous amount of support from the nelson center for entrepreneurship at brown university from the new england medical innovation center from the driven accelerator hub from math challenge and of course from the american heart association's empowered to serve program so nearly half a million americans in the u.s die annually due to cardiac arrest but with training and with tools for real-time response we can prevent unnecessary deaths so my team is very excited to bring to the world a technology that will give people the confidence and the capability to perform cpr during emergencies thank you amazing amazing innovation that we're seeing tonight social innovators that are really at the cusp of what we need problems that desperately need to be solved it's just incredible what we're seeing this evening and we want to keep up the momentum so next we have mason lucic a wood artisan and a creator of insa health design mason take it away my name is mason lusich i'm the co-founder and ceo of ensue health design based in puerto rico and houston texas our purpose is to help the underserved through novel technologies and design and our current mission is to protect all biomedicine users by providing them the means to protect their medication no matter what biomedicines like insulin humera and of course many vaccines require some sort of refrigeration to keep from supplying the problem with this is that even with the most robust systems for distribution the biopharma industry sees losses of over 35 billion dollars a year due to temperature failures on top of this for individuals for individual biologic users keeping these medications refrigerated exposes them to temperatures outside the recommended range 11 of the time in their home refrigerators resulting in medication degradation potential spoilage and then the health risks associated with that now imagine you rely on one of these medications and a category five hurricane hits your home you lose power for weeks all the time without a means of keeping your life-saving medication whole what do you do back in 2017 hurricane maria thrust puerto rico into darkness for months and over 900 diabetics lost their lives due to issues associated with lack of proper medicine storage we are answering this call with a personal affordable biomedicine pooling system no matter where or when our users vital medicine will be readily available and better protected than in a refrigerator or any market competitor our patent-pending cooling system maintains the proper temperature range for biomedicine with virtually zero downtime it will act as your permanent home for your medication plug into the wall ready to unplug and go should the meter rise and from there it can be recharged through your car through the wall or with a small 15 dollar solar panel while saving insurers thousands of dollars per year per user the actual purpose of this device is to protect the biomedicines eliminating the stress health risks and potential harm associated with spoiled medication faced by over 100 million biomedicine users around the world while in the american heart association and power to serve business accelerator we've embarked on a mission to test our prototypes with users receive their feedback and record their stories to share not only their struggles but to bring light to these issues as well as to the work that we're doing our prototypes are showing promising results and getting close to our quality standards and we will share them with users when they meet these families in the meantime we begin recording these stories to share our first of which is up on our blog linkedin and social media channels so please check it out when you get the chance it tells the story of juan one of our exceptional interns the struggles he faces as a type 1 diabetic and his goal of having a meaningful impact in the diabetes community on top of this we've secured another interview candidate for the next episode in our series we've received the innovation and technology prize from the enterprise 2020 group uh program by gruberwayakan and we have added a new dynamic team member to our team to help us accelerate to market our team is full of energy and hungry for the results that benefit from its diversity our backgrounds span mechanical engineering chemical engineering computer science marketing entrepreneurship project management and we put together an advisory board to fill our gaps with experts in industrial design finance growth and business strategy as well as diabetes and endocrinology as a bootstrap company ourselves capital is absolutely paranoid and if we were to receive a grant from this accelerator it would go directly into our product development later this year we are setting up a large-scale product test and efficacy study to concretely demonstrate the power and effect that our product can have on the medications filled with it our purpose at institute health design is to help the underserved through novel technologies and design and our current mission is to protect all biomedicine users by providing them the means to protect their medication no matter what i've been mason lusic and thank you all very much for your time mason again a story that hits close to home for me my mother has to keep her medicines refrigerated properly when a power outage happens when something happens and you can't do that that's when an innovation like yours is so very important another very amazing story to share but there are more incredible stories and they're incredible stories that you're seeing as well online when you're voting right so i want to make sure that you're continuing to vote but wait for our next presenter you've got to hear this story as well he's a talent and he is the brainchild he has created a an organization a company called safe bvm it is the brainchild of this man of prophecy buddhism proclamation over you at safebm we are redesigning artificial ventilation we have offices in san francisco california and st louis missouri i'm originally from india before safe pbm i worked as a physician for under-resourced communities in the city of mumbai on any given day i might see close to 200 patients because my hospital was one of the largest health care centers serving about 20 million people almost every other day we faced an increased demand and an acute shortage of icu beds and ventilators so we had to triage patients and often withhold care for patients with a low probability of surviving we commonly transferred patients to distant care facilities depending on the availability of ventilators in the united states my team observed that ventilators are not available in many under resource settings for example life in texas where the closest hospital is 45 minutes away this issue stems from a lack of funding for purchasing ventilators maintaining them and access to trained professionals and as all of us witnessed during the covet 19 pandemic ventilator shortage was one of the most critical issues for our health system to be clear there are two types of devices for artificial ventilation mechanical ventilators that you see in icus and manual resuscitators on the back valve mass this is the standard bag val mask maybe you have seen the device in movies being used during an emergency situation during a heart attack or a patient is not able to breathe on their own what's really interesting is that this bag was invented in the 1950s and has not really changed there is no regulation and it's easy for providers to misuse it by squeezing it too forcefully or too gently for instance when someone squeezes the back too forcefully pressure increases and air is pushed into the stomach the stomach distends the patient vomits and the vomit enters the patient's lung causing aspiration pneumonia and ards which have a mortality of 40 percent and a high cost of care of around 140 000 per patient hence it's not used hence it's not feasible to use the bag valve mask for prolonged manual ventilation as an alternative to ventilators instead of pursuing residency and practicing clinical medicine my co-founder harris and i teamed up with brilliant engineers from georgia tech to start safe pvm we designed a cost efficient accessory this device will help providers ventilate safely and minimize complications during the covet 19 spike last year physicians from the university of tennessee health system predicted that as situation goes out of control they might have to deploy medical students or relatives to ventilate patients manually so they reached out to us to study our device within 10 days they were able to get approvals to conduct two randomized control studies around 72 medical students and healthcare providers participated and backed the simulator for 12 hours each day for six consecutive days the study showed that it is feasible to replace ventilators with our device and extended manual ventilation the study was published in the prestigious british medical journal innovation then immediately following the study we connected with the u.s food and drug

administration to submit an emergency use authorization request we are anticipating approval at any time once approved we will partner with dr joe hawley who's the state ems director for tennessee and is a strong advocate for patron safety all of this is great news and we are excited however inappropriate use of the bag is still happening so during the american heart association's business accelerator we focused on creating a campaign to spread awareness about the best practices of manual ventilation we created fun animated video series that shows different scenarios that our healthcare providers experience on a day-to-day basis our first psa was published yesterday in 80 facebook and linkedin groups and has received over 200 views the grant will help us to develop more videos and spread awareness at a grassroot level just to wrap this up and to give you a sense of the scale of the problem 13.1 million manual resuscitators are used annually in the usa 71 of the times air is pushed into the patient's stomach instead of only the lungs currently one out of three out of hospital cardiac arrest patients vomit and of these one third aspirate the vomit resulting in complications we intend to reduce these complications by at least 50 percent thereby improving survival rates for cardiac arrest patients secondly we plan to document provider education metrics by counting the number of views on our videos finally at same pvm our goal is to be the standard of care for situations when mechanical ventilators are not available or accessible thank you for your time tonight thank you that is just fascinating and so needed at this time i am so glad that i do not have to vote i cannot vote i am switzerland i am not voting in this because i don't think i could even decide between all of these outstanding individuals and their innovative approaches but our judges that's their job they're going to have to vote and we want to give them some time to do just that because these have been amazing stories and amazing innovators that we've just heard from i want to make sure that you don't forget to vote either make sure that you voted for your favorite candidate i'm it's my understanding you can do it several times so make sure that you will do that you are doing that because the fan favorite voting is going to close in the next few minutes so you want to make sure that you have that opportunity to vote and take advantage of that right now i'd like to now invite nicole sapio who is the executive vice president of the eastern states region for the american heart association to share some remarks and some very special acknowledgements nicole thank you so much sharon and just wow what great concepts thank you and congratulations to all of the change makers who presented on ways to make their communities healthier i'm so inspired tonight so thank you as our american heart association ceo nancy brown mentioned earlier the work underway to address social determinants of health and achieve health equity is critical to the heart and brain health of everyone everywhere many of you may have heard the sad news of the recent passing and passing of mr john houston who is a long time aha advocate and donor who believed just this mr houston was an extraordinary volunteer for our mission he used his platform to support our work to achieve health equity he was a fervent believer in education and opportunity leading to his support of the american heart association's hbcu scholars and accelerators as we honor mr houston's memory tonight we are grateful for his dedication and unwavering commitment to our mission we are also so honored to know that some of mr houston's beloved family members are with us this evening and i am so honored to share with you tonight that as a last gift mr houston fully funded a generous grant for the 2021 empowered to serve business accelerator it goes without saying that mr houston is missed deeply but his name and his legacy will live on in the many lives he touched with his philanthropic giving and passion for health equity mr houston's legacy has led to yet another first for our communities i'm so pleased to announce that our eastern states region of the american heart association will be hosting a first of its kind event the empowered to serve faith-based accelerator much like tonight's business accelerator there will be opportunities for faith institutions to submit their business models aimed at addressing the impact of coven 19 in communities especially those most vulnerable and under resourced to build long lasting and sustainable impact we will begin accepting applications in march and the finale is being planned for june we're very grateful to the donors who have generously made this faith-based accelerator possible as plans evolve information will be posted to the empower to serve website empowertoserv.org so please stay tuned thank you all for participating in this evening's finale i'll now turn it back over to sharon and our esteemed judges thank you so much nicole that was an absolutely beautiful reflection and recognition to mr houston really really important to share so thank you so much for that all right everybody here we go the judges have made their decisions the fan favorite has been tabulated but before the judges announced the lucky grantees we have a surprise message from a man who knows just a little something about entrepreneurship and pitching what's up is the shark damon john here and american heart association wants to acknowledge the hard work that the eight accelerators have been doing to improve the health of their communities because we all have the right to access health care healthy food and safe housing good luck to everyone and stay safe in 2021 thank you damon ayako what you have to say good luck for everyone but before we go to the top finalists we have one final trivia question and so this question we're asking the percentage of americans who are under 65 who do not have health insurance coverage again we are asking that you will text to the number two two three three three your answer uh you may have to text aha polling before you're able to answer if you haven't been participating in the trivia questions before now and again a very important question and unfortunately an answer we probably don't want to see to realize how many people actually do not have health insurance who are under 65 years old we know from all of the statistics from the american heart association and the american stroke association that heart conditions brain issues strokes cardiac arrest can all happen in a very very young age and so there are a great number of people that in fact do suffer from these issues and then don't have health insurance coverage so again put in your answer for the percentage of americans who are under the age of 65 who do not have health insurance coverage and we are going to show you the answer momentarily there it is 12.1 percent of americans under the age of 65 are uninsured all right judges now are you ready we want to start with our second place 15 000 grantee and we're going to have mr holloway take it away yeah thank you so much obviously a very hard decision for us judges but second place um really proud to announce goes to prathamish prudes when we look at this opportunity you know good things really do come in small packages there's a huge need as you heard from prothmiesch you know one in three that are bagged are vomiting and at risk of aspirating this is happening you know 13 point mil 13.1 million

people are bags uh every year what i think we love about this opportunity is that the adoption is so easy so many solutions and so much of 2020 and this year is requiring change from us his solution here and the solution of safe bvm is something that is easily adopted it is adding on to what is existing today and ensuring that patients are getting the care that they need so congratulations prof nish thank you and i believe we're going to toss it now to dr knowles to let you know who is taking home the top grant of 40 000 tonight thank you sharon boy this has been a tough tough decision and there were no there were no losers tonight but i want to congratulate and give congratulations to our first place grant recipient abigail kohler abigail i mean this was a difficult choice to make all the candidates story and their business says are gonna make it and make it big and make such a great impact you know i took some of your notes of the words that you said like passion make a difference social impact movement chance to change public service i see you abigail i see you at miguel but abigail you captured our attention and i think it was me to ask you the question about your patterns uh so congratulations on your three patents and your passion and your whole energy for biomedical engineering and software development you're going to make a difference and i just want to thank you for your ability uh for your impact um not just america but the world abigail thank you so much excellent excellent excellent i want to turn it over now to shelley shelly you have some important information to talk to us about about the fan favorite i'm going to send it over to you yes this is so awesome i'm so coming in with over three thousand uh fan votes we have probably me awesome congratulations to everyone thank you so much it's incredible incredible i think everyone who we heard from today needs to be inspired and continue please continue being the change makers that you are i know you will i know you're going to continue to do your work and i and i urge everyone to again go to the website and make sure you read the stories read every story because they are making a difference in their communities in the nation in the world um and i applaud all of you for all of your efforts and for all that you're doing for uh making sure that health inequity is no longer that health equity is the way it will be for the future i want to thank all of you who have been listening who've been watching who've been voting uh for joining us and for lending your time and attention to these wonderful community change makers they're sprinkled throughout every neighborhood every neighborhood they could be right next door to you i found someone on this that is right next door to my mom you just never know you never know and so we invite you to let these change makers um let them know who you are interact with them um embrace them in your networks we're going to be opening up an application period with the american heart association for the 2021 national empower to serve business accelerator finale that's going to be taking place in october so i definitely want you to stay in tune and stay aware of that and i want to give a very special thank you to your our judges i have no idea how you did this because this was a very very tough competition matthew knowles shelley bell brian holloway thank you for your support of the american heart association and to the aha eastern states region donors and sponsors thank you your 13 states the district of columbia and all of the work that you've been doing ongoing to support the empowered to serve business accelerators thank you for that and then also make sure to join us for the minnesota go red empowered business accelerator taking place in april as well as something you just heard about our first ever faith-based business accelerator that'll take place in june i know you're going to join me in congratulating our winners i'm just so proud of all of you and so inspired by all of you and so grateful to all of you for all of the work that you're doing and i know that you're also going to be congratulating every other candidate who thinks about entering the business accelerator program and encouraging anyone that you know who has an innovative idea and is an entrepreneur looking to do more encourage them to participate in the business accelerator program it's such an important program and it's doing so much to raise awareness about all the issues that are faced in terms of heart conditions and brain health but also innovations to make change to make sure that we are moving forward for a better tomorrow so thank you all so much for joining us tonight and we look forward to seeing you at our next event good night you

2021-02-01 23:32

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