LaKisha Greenwade on Wearable Technology, Startup Support, and Revolutionizing Diabetes Care

An interview on wearable technology, startup support, and revolutionizing diabetes care with LaKisha Greenwade, founder of Wearable Tech Ventures.

Episode Transcript

David Klonoff (00:13):
Welcome to Diabetes Technology Report.
I'm Dr David Klonoff, anendocrinologist at Mills
Peninsula Medical Center in SanMateo, california.
We have a special guest thisweek and I'm going to turn this
over to my co-host, dr DavidKerr, and he will introduce her.

David Kerr (00:33):
Thank you and hello everyone.
David Kerr, here, speaking toyou once more from Santa Barbara
, California.
You certainly have a veryspecial guest today with a
unique perspective on technologyin general and diabetes
specifically.
Lakeisha Greenway, welcome.
It's lovely to have you onDiabetes Technology Reports
today.

(00:54):
I'm curious how did you end upbecoming interested in
technology in general anddiabetes specifically?
Tell us about your journey tothis point.

LaKisha Greenwade (01:07):
First of all, thank you both for having me as
your guest.
It's a tremendous honor to behere and we actually met in
Houston, and so I definitelywant to give kudos to the
organizers there.
As we were discussing Whirlpooltechnology, but I like to
consider myself somewhat of aunicorn, considering that I'm
leading a global enterprise intechnology and I didn't get my

(01:30):
first computer until after Igraduated college.
Now I wear a lot of facialmoisturizer but it's working.
But I'm not that young and I'mnot that old, and so to consider
that transition is prettypowerful.
But, to answer your question,it was purpose.
I'm originally from Akron, ohio,have been living in Baltimore,

(01:51):
maryland, for years and I wasworking as a regional account
manager for Dow Chemical and atthe time I was being called back
to the home office and I said Ilike the DMV area that's what
we call it out here in Maryland,the DMV for DC, maryland,
virginia.
I said I like the DMV areathat's what we call it out here
in Maryland, the DMV for DC,maryland, virginia.
I said I really like this area,I want to stay here, and little

(02:19):
did I know that that transitionwould open up my mind when I
became a representative for NovoNordisk and I was a diabetes
care specialist and I wasworking with their insulins and
Johns Hopkins was my mainaccount.
So that was a really big dealand I actually launched their
first GLP-1.
So, considering that history,that's how I got introduced to

(02:41):
diabetes and was working toeducate a lot of primary care
providers and nursepractitioners and the entire
medical community and patients,and little did I know that that
exposure would be a seed thatwas planted in me as I started
looking at the unique history offashion in Baltimore and

(03:02):
thinking before technologybecame a mainstream topic in
various cities, I was looking athow can I put genius on display
for people that often aren'tlooked at as geniuses in the
media?
And out of that was my originalplatform called Glam Tech,
which transitioned to WearableTech Ventures and now we are a
global ecosystem based inBaltimore Wearable Tech Ventures

(03:22):
and now we are a globalecosystem based in Baltimore,
maryland, with founders in fourcontinents.

David Kerr (03:28):
And in terms of ventures wearable ventures what
is it you specifically areinvolved in on a day-to-day
basis now?

LaKisha Greenwade (03:42):
Yes, so day-to-day it varies, but
ultimately our mission is todevelop and promote wearable
technology, and our goal is tosupport 100 startups by 2030.
And so, when we look at that,how do we dive into developing
the pipeline of talent as itrelates to this wearable
technology?
Wearable technology is not justa device that's worn on your
wrist, and it's specifically inthe diabetes market.

(04:02):
We've seen an influx ofinnovations that impact patients
in a positive way, wherepatients don't necessarily have
to deal with the dailyfrustrations of pricking
themselves to get their bloodsugars right.
So wearable technology has beenable to assist with that.
But we've also seen someinnovations that are assisting

(04:25):
patients with neuropathy, in theform of garments and socks and
things of that nature that ourfounders have been producing to
assist with some of thosesymptoms and tragedies on the
back end.

David Klonoff (04:43):
What types of services do you provide to your
partner companies ororganizations?

LaKisha Greenwade (04:50):
Oh, okay.
So one of the unique thingsabout being an ecosystem builder
at Warble Tech Ventures is thatI'm one of the first
independent ecosystem buildersin the country.
So what that means is I didn'tcome in with a company to start
and say, hey, we have thisfoundation that's going to fund
us.
I came in as a passionate womanthat had some summit success in

(05:12):
the industry that said, hey,here's a problem and I wanted to
garner some companies to workwith me.
And, as a result, we've beenworking with companies such as
Under Armour, the Boeing Company, amazon, deloitte, etc.
And what we've done over thepast few years and we've been

(05:34):
recognized by Congress for someof our work is we focus on,
number one, identifying ways toenhance technical education and
applying that technicaleducation to non-traditional
folks so that they can ideateproducts that can come to the

(05:54):
market.
And then we gave license to say, all right, we don't want you
just using your imagination, butwe want you to pitch this to
these companies to see if thereis opportunity to further
develop something for themarketplace.
So, from that standpoint ofwhat is it that we've offered to

(06:14):
date to some of those companiesoutside of identifying amazing
founders with tremendousinvestment potential around the
country and around the world.
We're also able to providefresh perspective as well as a
first look at some potentialsolutions that can be further

(06:37):
developed in their portfolio,whether that be through
acquisition or furtherdevelopment with our talent
pipeline.

David Klonoff (06:45):
Do you see diabetes as an important disease
for the wearable deviceindustry?

LaKisha Greenwade (06:54):
Absolutely One of the most important things
that diabetes has done for thewearable industry is to help
folks understand that wearabletechnology is not just in a box.
Folks understand that wearabletechnology is not just in a box.
The challenges we've had in thepast is that folks that were

(07:15):
developing wearable technologyit either came off as gimmicky.
It failed very quickly or, ifit succeeded, people just
limited it to a device thatcould be worn on your wrist,
which all of us might be usingin our daily activities worn on
your wrist, which all of usmight be using in our daily
activities and so what thishelped to do was to provide

(07:40):
another case study of benefit topatients and providers to make
life just a little bit easier.
But what it's also doing ishelping us to draft a more
informed discussion and bringingmore people to the table.
So, for example, this pastsummer we hosted our annual
training series, which is calledour Global Hackathon.

(08:02):
We host the world's largestwearable tech hackathon and we
have different tracks associatedwith that hackathon.
So we have a sports tech track,we have an AI VR track, we had
a health equity track, a gaming,et cetera, and so for the
health equity track, wepartnered with a new program

(08:24):
called the HEAL program out ofDillard University and they
focus on Black maternal health,and so we worked with them to
develop a challenge, focus onBlack maternal health and
chronic diseases, to say what'sreally going on here.
And I was able to pull in one ofmy former partners from Noble
Nordisk where I was sellingpharmaceuticals.

(08:45):
She now has a consultingbusiness, monique Miller at, a
healthy outcomes consultant, andwe looked at inflammation and
we brought in some, you know,ob-gyn, and so we had students
and we had entrepreneurs cometogether to say how can we
address this challenge with thematernal health crisis, looking

(09:07):
at chronic conditions such asdiabetes.
And we provided folks with thateducation and it was phenomenal
with some of the suggestions wegot back from teams at Dillard,
from teams at Stanford thatsaid, hey, this is kind of
interesting and we want to seehow this all correlates.
And ultimately, one of thethings that I think has not been
addressed in the mainstreammedia and I'm using the Black

(09:31):
maternal health segment as anexample is the impact of
diabetes while being pregnant,and so we were able to address
that and we think there's a lotof opportunity to do something
more in the future.

David Kerr (09:46):
Lakeisha at Southern Health, we are particularly
interested in health equity.
I mean it's so important.
One of the questions I keepbeing asked is how can we
increase representation fromtraditionally underrepresented
communities?
It sounds like your approachcould help to deliver that.

(10:06):
You just want to say a fewthings about that.

LaKisha Greenwade (10:09):
Absolutely and thank you.
Like one of the things that wepride ourselves on here at
Wearable Tech Ventures is wework to make sure that everyone
has a voice at the table andoftentimes when you think about
you know the whole productprocess, who's often left out of
the discussion?
The consumer or people that aregoing to be impacted by that

(10:30):
every single day.
And so we adjust that by makingsure with these training
opportunities that are premium,where folks have access to world
experts, that they can givetheir input and they can also
partner with someone that isincredibly technical, or they
can partner with a doctoralstudent or undergraduate student

(10:50):
to come together and develop asolution together.
The other piece that I think isreally unique about us is that
wearable technology we can coverso many facets, and so when we
consider sports right, when weconsider some of our
partnerships and folks we workwith in the past and other
challenges such as the NFL,having that unique perspective

(11:13):
of that youth perspective andthat wisdom perspective, if I
could call it that, makes a hugedifference in some of the
solutions that could come to thetable that we can bring forth.
So I think health equity startswith number one making sure
that the table is open, thatthere's access to information

(11:34):
and to further skill building,and then also an opportunity to
share so that we can identifysome things that they can move
forward long term and help usovercome this disparity with
diabetes.

David Kerr (11:57):
What I'm hearing is that if there's companies out
there or researchers who need orwant to expand representation
in the technology space, theyshould get in touch with you.

LaKisha Greenwade (12:03):
Absolutely.
We are definitely looking formore folks to partner with.
We actually have an idea for aproject that we would like to
launch in the near future withour youth that's diabetes
focused.
But we've been successful.

(12:27):
We have members of Congressthat listen to us and we also
encourage the inclusion of AI insome of these new innovations
that we anticipate coming to themarket.

David Klonoff (12:35):
Lakeisha, at this point, are you looking more for
inventors or investors ormanufacturers?
Who do you interact with themost and where do you see a need
?

LaKisha Greenwade (12:50):
Great, great point there.
So for the past five years we'vebeen scanning the market and
we've built substantialrelationships with industry,
with manufacturers, witheducators, et cetera, and youth.
We're now, for the next five,five years, going to be focusing
on how do we actually fulfillour mission to support these 100

(13:11):
startups, and that's going totake some funding, and so we are
looking to establish ourofficial fund, but we've also
identified some financialpartners to help us in that
pipeline of investing in some ofthese amazing ideas.
So that's number one.
Number two we're looking forsome specific partners that care

(13:34):
about diabetes and that havesome resources to help us launch
a youth-focused researchproject in diabetes, and that
can be in Baltimore.
It could be national, but we'vebeen able to prove with our
partnerships at University ofMaryland, baltimore County and

(13:55):
with a number of other folksthat worked with us even this
past year there's an interestand there's a couple of
different ways that we can spinthis and maybe provide some
additional collaborations forthe future.
That may not have been exploredbefore, but we want to be that
catalyst to help make thatchange.

David Klonoff (14:13):
Well, Lakeisha, I can tell you that Sutter Health
is interested in these types ofprojects, as David said, and
we'll be in touch with you afterthis interview.
I have one last question whatdo you see as the future of
wearable technologies?
Where are we going?

LaKisha Greenwade (14:31):
Wonderful question.
I think wearable technologiesin the diabetes market is going
to become more accessible.
So, like what we're seeing nowwith some of the shifts as it
relates to hearing aids right,we're seeing how more accessible
that has been coming to themarket I think there's going to
be a number of devices and toolsthat are going to be readily

(14:53):
available where it's going tohelp open that discussion for
people that are currentlydealing with diabetes and those
that are supporting folks withdiabetes, and I think we're
going to see a higher level ofcompetence in managing diabetes
as it relates to that.

David Klonoff (15:15):
Well as these advances occur.
I'll bet you'll be right in themiddle of everything.
So, Lakeisha, thank you forbeing interviewed by us today.
We thank the audience.
This podcast is available atthe Diabetes Technology Society
website and on Spotify and atthe Apple Store, and we look

(15:38):
forward to our next podcast.
We'll see and hear you later.
Bye-bye.

David Kerr (15:44):
Thank you very much, everyone.