As we begin the New Year, the Polsky Center is launching a new breakfast series to highlight important emerging trends in select industries. Join us on Friday, January 18 for the first session on Health Tech, which is hosted in partnership with MATTER. In Health Tech 2019, we will dive deeper with a panel of expert venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in healthcare technology as they discuss the state of the field in 2019, what is now passé, and where they see white space for entrepreneurial opportunity.

Additionally, the event will include the opportunity for networking and time for a limited number of 1-minute pitches from health tech startups before this engaged audience. Free breakfast is provided and registration is required.

Panelists include: //

• Imran Ahmad, MBA ’16, AB ’06, OCA Ventures – Imran brings over ten years of experience financing, investing, and founding early stage technology and middle market companies. Prior to joining OCA Ventures, Imran worked as a mobile strategy and operations analyst for PayPal Mobile where he helped launch PayPal Here in domestic retail and international markets. Additionally, Imran was a private equity associate for JMH Capital where he invested in growth equity and leveraged buyout transactions in healthcare and business services. He began his career as an investment banking analyst for William Blair. Imran has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA in economics from the University of Chicago.
• Gary Conkright, MBA ’82, physIQ – Gary is a visionary leader with a demonstrated ability to craft innovative strategies, build exceptional management teams, and manage to results in a fast-changing business environment. Prior to physIQ, he was the founding CEO and Chairman of SmartSignal Corporation (now part of GE), a Chicago-based enterprise software firm, incubated by the University of Chicago to commercialize predictive analytics technology developed at Argonne National Laboratory. Over the past 20 years, serving as CEO of venture-backed technology start-ups, he has secured over $45 million in venture capital to bring game-changing proprietary technology from laboratory to commercial success. Throughout his start-up career, he has a track record of negotiating strategic collaborations, stemming from his philosophy to partner when possible, to leverage and focus on the company’s core competency. Gary has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BS in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University. He is also the named inventor on six U.S. patents.
• Jordan Dolin, Furthur Fund – Jordan is an entrepreneur with nearly two decade’s worth of experience in the healthcare industry. Jordan has a lengthy track record of supporting and championing entrepreneurs and has been an active member of Chicago’s startup community for his entire career. He has been an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and has been intimately involved with MATTER, Chicago’s healthcare incubator, serving as their very first and now longest Mentor in Residence. Prior to the Furthur Fund, Jordan founded Emmi Solutions, a patient engagement healthcare technology company that was acquired by Wolters Kluwer for $170 million in 2016. Jordan has a master’s degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
• Stacy Lindau, MD, MA ’02, NowPow – Stacy is a professor and gynecologist at the University of Chicago, founder and director at WomanLab.org, and founder and chief innovation officer at NowPow. NowPow is a health care startup in Hyde Park that links patients with complex medical problems to social services agencies and support organizations that can help them regain their health and stay out of the hospital. NowPow’s platform focuses on referrals that address basic needs and chronic disease management by partnering with healthcare providers and community-based organizations to identify these needs, provide highly matched referrals, facilitate closed loop referrals, support bi-directional patient engagement, and document referral outcomes. Stacy earned her Doctor of Medicine at Brown University School of Medicine, an MA from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan.
• Dipa Mehta, MBA ’12 – Dipa was formerly a Managing Director at Sandbox Industries, a Chicago-based venture capital firm. Dipa focused her time on investing in healthcare innovation through the BlueCross BlueShield Venture Funds, a collaborative investment platform with over $575 million in capital and 30 Blue Plans participating Prior to Sandbox, Dipa was at Amgen Ventures, the corporate venture fund of Amgen. At Amgen, Dipa worked closely with the global commercial and marketing organizations to identify companies in the digital health space for their products. Previously, she held positions at UBS in the Global Healthcare Investment Banking group and the Healthcare Fund at Paul Capital Partners, which invested in late-stage pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Dipa holds a BS from the New York University Stern School of Business and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where she received the Chicago Booth Leadership Award of Distinction. Dipa is also a Kauffman Fellow. She lives in Chicago with her husband and twin baby boys.

If you like this event, be sure to check out all the events in our series:

• January 18: Health Tech 2019
• January 25: Food 2019
• February 1: Therapeutics 2019
• February 8: Civtech 2019
• February 15: Fintech 2019
• February 22: Energy 2019
• March 1: AI 2019