Women make up a half of the entire world’s population – 49 percent, to be exact. Due to this fact, it is expected that they should be entirely equal to men when it comes to making decisions, on both a personal and a professional sense. While in today’s world, gender equality is being largely promoted, in the business environment, male entrepreneurs are still more present.
When it comes to the healthcare industry for instance, according to some surveys conducted by Rock Health, more than 70 percent of healthcare workers are women, and around 75 percent of home caregivers are also women. In addition, when it comes to making healthcare decisions for their households, 80 percent of these decisions are made by women.
However, in the case of leadership in healthcare, only 35 percent of them are occupying executive positions, a fact which proves that they are being underrepresented, even though businesses with female leadership tend to bring bigger profits – up to around 40 million USD, to be more precise.
So, although we cannot actually say that gender diversity is being achieved to a full extent, there are some powerful ladies that are making us believe that the things in the healthcare industry will significantly change in the near future, and in this article, you will find out more about them and their incredible achievements.
1. Hadeel Ayoub
Hadeel Ayoub, a Saudi digital designer, is the founder of BrightSign, a company which specializes in developing technology solutions for sign language users designed to help them in everyday communication. As Ayoub puts it: “We are working hard so that one day we can help give a voice to those who can’t speak”.
She has designed a smart data glove which features sensors that have an ability to translate hand gestures used in sign language to written and spoken language. This glove works on its own and doesn’t require any additional smart devices. It has a small screen which is used to display the words and a speaker which turns them into sounds.
This amazing device is a revolutionary solution for both speech-impaired people as well as their friends and families, who now have an opportunity to hear them speak for the first time in their life.
2. Lea von Bidder
Lea von Bidder is the co-founder and president of Ava Science, a company that designed a wearable fertility tracker device for women which is used to help them monitor their cycle and can be used by both individuals and healthcare professionals. Even though there are other fertility trackers available on the market, they are not completely reliable as they use only one parameter.
On the other hand, the Ava Fertility tracker device collects data by using 9 distinct physiological parameters and thus enables women to identify their fertile days, the quality of sleep, the level of physiological stress, and much more. This device has been clinically tested and FDA approved, and it has an accuracy of 89 percent.
3. Hsin-Hua (Sheana) Yu
Hsin-Hua or Sheana Yu who has a master’s degree in global innovation design is the founder and CEO of Aergo – a company which has designed a posture support solution to help young people in wheelchairs. Aergo support system is made of special air cells which can adjust automatically to the user’s movements and provide them with better comfort and freedom to participate in their favorite activities.
This system comes with a remote control which enables users to adjust their chair according to their own preferences with one single click. What inspired Sheana Yu to design Aergo is the fact that “Students and carers complained about the social stigma caused by not being able to sit upright, which led to people excluding them from conversations or activities”, as she puts it.
4. Dr. Sarah Teichmann
Dr. Sarah Teichmann is the head of Cellular Genetics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. She has won numerous different awards throughout her career and is considered to have greatly contributed to biology in the last 15 years. Her latest research is focused on immunity and genomics.
This female scientist’s work is mainly centered on understanding the complex dynamics of our immune responses, and it has served as a standard for many healthcare professionals.
5. Flavia Wahl
Flavia Wahl is the founder and CEO of iBreve and has designed a wearable device for people who deal with a lot of stress on a daily basis. This powerful tool works by measuring and analyzing our breathing patterns. It prevents people from experiencing excessive amounts of stress by guiding them through various simple relaxation exercises.
It is based on machine learning algorithms and was mainly designed for women – the device can be attached to a bra. This is the best place to measure breathing patterns through our chest expansion.
6. Dr. Kathy Niakan
Dr. Kathy Niakan is a developmental biologist at The Francis Crick Institute. She has more than 15 publications in the field of developmental biology. Her current work is focused on understanding the influence of key signaling pathways and transcription factors which are developmentally regulated on differentiation which happens in early human development and is believed to be the basis of modern developmental biology.
To sum up, all of the abovementioned inspirational ladies are the best proof that women are of essential importance in today’s health tech industry and they certainly serve as motivation to nurture gender diversity further in the future.
