David Klonoff: 0:13

Welcome to Diabetes Technology Report. I'm Dr David Klonoff, an endocrinologist at Mills Peninsula Medical Center in San Mateo, california. We have a special guest this week and I'm going to turn this over to my co-host, dr David Kerr, and he will introduce her.

David Kerr: 0:33

Thank you and hello everyone. David Kerr, here, speaking to you once more from Santa Barbara, California. You certainly have a very special guest today with a unique perspective on technology in general and diabetes specifically. Lakeisha Greenway, welcome. It's lovely to have you on Diabetes Technology Reports today. I'm curious how did you end up becoming interested in technology in general and diabetes specifically? Tell us about your journey to this point.

LaKisha Greenwade: 1:07

First of all, thank you both for having me as your guest. It's a tremendous honor to be here and we actually met in Houston, and so I definitely want to give kudos to the organizers there. As we were discussing Whirlpool technology, but I like to consider myself somewhat of a unicorn, considering that I'm leading a global enterprise in technology and I didn't get my first computer until after I graduated college. Now I wear a lot of facial moisturizer but it's working. But I'm not that young and I'm not that old, and so to consider that transition is pretty powerful. But, to answer your question, it was purpose.

LaKisha Greenwade: 1:48

I'm originally from Akron, ohio, have been living in Baltimore, maryland, for years and I was working as a regional account manager for Dow Chemical and at the time I was being called back to the home office and I said I like the DMV area that's what we call it out here in Maryland, the DMV for DC, maryland, virginia.

LaKisha Greenwade: 2:04

I said I like the DMV area that's what we call it out here in Maryland, the DMV for DC, maryland, virginia.

LaKisha Greenwade: 2:07

I said I really like this area, I want to stay here, and little did I know that that transition would open up my mind when I became a representative for Novo Nordisk and I was a diabetes care specialist and I was working with their insulins and Johns Hopkins was my main account.

LaKisha Greenwade: 2:30

So that was a really big deal and I actually launched their first GLP-1. So, considering that history, that's how I got introduced to diabetes and was working to educate a lot of primary care providers and nurse practitioners and the entire medical community and patients, and little did I know that that exposure would be a seed that was planted in me as I started looking at the unique history of fashion in Baltimore and thinking before technology became a mainstream topic in various cities, I was looking at how can I put genius on display for people that often aren't looked at as geniuses in the media? And out of that was my original platform called Glam Tech, which transitioned to Wearable Tech Ventures and now we are a global ecosystem based in Baltimore Wearable Tech Ventures and now we are a global ecosystem based in Baltimore, maryland, with founders in four continents.

David Kerr: 3:28

And in terms of ventures wearable ventures what is it you specifically are involved in on a day-to-day basis now?

LaKisha Greenwade: 3:42

Yes, so day-to-day it varies, but ultimately our mission is to develop and promote wearable technology, and our goal is to support 100 startups by 2030. And so, when we look at that, how do we dive into developing the pipeline of talent as it relates to this wearable technology? Wearable technology is not just a device that's worn on your wrist, and it's specifically in the diabetes market. We've seen an influx of innovations that impact patients in a positive way, where patients don't necessarily have to deal with the daily frustrations of pricking themselves to get their blood sugars right. So wearable technology has been able to assist with that. But we've also seen some innovations that are assisting patients with neuropathy, in the form of garments and socks and things of that nature that our founders have been producing to assist with some of those symptoms and tragedies on the back end.

David Klonoff: 4:43

What types of services do you provide to your partner companies or organizations?

LaKisha Greenwade: 4:50

Oh, okay. So one of the unique things about being an ecosystem builder at Warble Tech Ventures is that I'm one of the first independent ecosystem builders in the country. So what that means is I didn't come in with a company to start and say, hey, we have this foundation that's going to fund us. I came in as a passionate woman that had some summit success in the industry that said, hey, here's a problem and I wanted to garner some companies to work with me. And, as a result, we've been working with companies such as Under Armour, the Boeing Company, amazon, deloitte, etc.

LaKisha Greenwade: 5:29

And what we've done over the past few years and we've been recognized by Congress for some of our work is we focus on, number one, identifying ways to enhance technical education and applying that technical education to non-traditional folks so that they can ideate products that can come to the market. And then we gave license to say, all right, we don't want you just using your imagination, but we want you to pitch this to these companies to see if there is opportunity to further develop something for the marketplace. So, from that standpoint of what is it that we've offered to date to some of those companies outside of identifying amazing founders with tremendous investment potential around the country and around the world. We're also able to provide fresh perspective as well as a first look at some potential solutions that can be further developed in their portfolio, whether that be through acquisition or further development with our talent pipeline.

David Klonoff: 6:45

Do you see diabetes as an important disease for the wearable device industry?

LaKisha Greenwade: 6:54

Absolutely One of the most important things that diabetes has done for the wearable industry is to help folks understand that wearable technology is not just in a box. Folks understand that wearable technology is not just in a box. The challenges we've had in the past is that folks that were developing wearable technology it either came off as gimmicky. It failed very quickly or, if it succeeded, people just limited it to a device that could be worn on your wrist, which all of us might be using in our daily activities worn on your wrist, which all of us might be using in our daily activities and so what this helped to do was to provide another case study of benefit to patients and providers to make life just a little bit easier. But what it's also doing is helping us to draft a more informed discussion and bringing more people to the table. So, for example, this past summer we hosted our annual training series, which is called our Global Hackathon. We host the world's largest wearable tech hackathon and we have different tracks associated with 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, we partnered with a new program called the HEAL program out of Dillard University and they focus on Black maternal health, and so we worked with them to develop a challenge, focus on Black maternal health and chronic diseases, to say what's really going on here.

LaKisha Greenwade: 8:40

And I was able to pull in one of my former partners from Noble Nordisk where I was selling pharmaceuticals. She now has a consulting business, monique Miller at, a healthy outcomes consultant, and we looked at inflammation and we brought in some, you know, ob-gyn, and so we had students and we had entrepreneurs come together to say how can we address this challenge with the maternal health crisis, looking at chronic conditions such as diabetes. And we provided folks with that education and it was phenomenal with some of the suggestions we got back from teams at Dillard, from teams at Stanford that said, hey, this is kind of interesting and we want to see how this all correlates. And ultimately, one of the things that I think has not been addressed in the mainstream media and I'm using the Black maternal health segment as an example is the impact of diabetes while being pregnant, and so we were able to address that and we think there's a lot of opportunity to do something more in the future.

David Kerr: 9:46

Lakeisha at Southern Health, we are particularly interested in health equity. I mean it's so important. One of the questions I keep being asked is how can we increase representation from traditionally underrepresented communities? It sounds like your approach could help to deliver that. You just want to say a few things about that.

LaKisha Greenwade: 10:09

Absolutely and thank you.

LaKisha Greenwade: 10:10

Like one of the things that we pride ourselves on here at Wearable Tech Ventures is we work to make sure that everyone has a voice at the table and oftentimes when you think about you know the whole product process, who's often left out of the discussion?

LaKisha Greenwade: 10:27

The consumer or people that are going to be impacted by that every single day.

LaKisha Greenwade: 10:31

And so we adjust that by making sure with these training opportunities that are premium, where folks have access to world experts, that they can give their input and they can also partner with someone that is incredibly technical, or they can partner with a doctoral student or undergraduate student to come together and develop a solution together.

LaKisha Greenwade: 10:54

The other piece that I think is really unique about us is that wearable technology we can cover so many facets, and so when we consider sports right, when we consider some of our partnerships and folks we work with in the past and other challenges such as the NFL, having that unique perspective of that youth perspective and that wisdom perspective, if I could call it that, makes a huge difference in some of the solutions that could come to the table that we can bring forth. So I think health equity starts with number one making sure that the table is open, that there's access to information and to further skill building, and then also an opportunity to share so that we can identify some things that they can move forward long term and help us overcome this disparity with diabetes.

David Kerr: 11:57

What I'm hearing is that if there's companies out there or researchers who need or want to expand representation in the technology space, they should get in touch with you.

LaKisha Greenwade: 12:03

Absolutely. We are definitely looking for more folks to partner with. We actually have an idea for a project that we would like to launch in the near future with our youth that's diabetes focused. But we've been successful. We have members of Congress that listen to us and we also encourage the inclusion of AI in some of these new innovations that we anticipate coming to the market.

David Klonoff: 12:35

Lakeisha, at this point, are you looking more for inventors or investors or manufacturers? Who do you interact with the most and where do you see a need?

LaKisha Greenwade: 12:50

Great, great point there.

LaKisha Greenwade: 12:52

So for the past five years we've been scanning the market and we've built substantial relationships with industry, with manufacturers, with educators, et cetera, and youth.

LaKisha Greenwade: 13:04

We're now, for the next five, five years, going to be focusing on how do we actually fulfill our mission to support these 100 startups, and that's going to take some funding, and so we are looking to establish our official fund, but we've also identified some financial partners to help us in that pipeline of investing in some of these amazing ideas. So that's number one. Number two we're looking for some specific partners that care about diabetes and that have some resources to help us launch a youth-focused research project in diabetes, and that can be in Baltimore. It could be national, but we've been able to prove with our partnerships at University of Maryland, baltimore County and with a number of other folks that worked with us even this past year there's an interest and there's a couple of different ways that we can spin this and maybe provide some additional collaborations for the future. That may not have been explored before, but we want to be that catalyst to help make that change.

David Klonoff: 14:13

Well, Lakeisha, I can tell you that Sutter Health is interested in these types of projects, as David said, and we'll be in touch with you after this interview. I have one last question what do you see as the future of wearable technologies? Where are we going?

LaKisha Greenwade: 14:31

Wonderful question. I think wearable technologies in the diabetes market is going to become more accessible. So, like what we're seeing now with some of the shifts as it relates to hearing aids right, we're seeing how more accessible that has been coming to the market I think there's going to be a number of devices and tools that are going to be readily available where it's going to help open that discussion for people that are currently dealing with diabetes and those that are supporting folks with diabetes, and I think we're going to see a higher level of competence 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 the middle of everything. So, Lakeisha, thank you for being interviewed by us today. We thank the audience. This podcast is available at the Diabetes Technology Society website and on Spotify and at the Apple Store, and we look forward to our next podcast. We'll see and hear you later. Bye-bye.

David Kerr: 15:44

Thank you very much, everyone.