health entrepreneurship, but because we provide the resources and the mentorship, perhaps it becomes less scary.”
The long resumes that some of the Rock Health teams bring with them testify to the incubator’s success so far in attracting veteran technologists. Here’s a rundown of the eight Rock Health teams announced today, with summaries of their technologies and their founding teams’ backgrounds. (Three more unnamed teams remain in stealth mode.) The descriptions here, which are based on documents provided by Rock Health, are vague in spots, but that may be understandable, given that these companies are just at the start of their journeys. Watch this space for fuller reports as the Rock Health companies mature.
BrainBot—Brain monitoring technology for individuals, designed to help with stress management, meditation, or attention problems. Founders: Rohan Dixit (Harvard-MIT-MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Stanford Medical Center, Northwestern University cognitive neuroscience), James Levy (Google, Stickybits, Northwestern University).
CellScope—Smartphone camera attachments for at-home diagnosis of ear infections in children. Founders: Erick Douglas (Tweed Networks, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, UC Berkeley bioengineering), Amy Sheng (Medica Corporation, UC Berkeley bioengineering), Scot Strube (Orrick, Wilson Sonsini, AT&T, UVA School of Law).
Genomera—Crowdsourcing platform for consumer-managed open health studies. Founders: Greg Biggers (Xing Technology, Experts Exchange, Vantive, Responsys, Chordiant), Jonathan Zempel (Solis Design, Macromedia, IBM), Raymond McCauley (Illumina, Solexa, Ingenuity Systems, QIAGEN/Rapigene, Singularity University).
Health In Reach—A transparent marketplace where patients without employer-sponsored healthcare plans can evaluate doctors and dentists based on their experience, reputation, and prices, and obtain group discount rates. Founder: Scott Sangster (Tech Coast Angels, Walt Disney Internet Group).
Omada Health—An Ideo spinoff using social networking principles to aid patients at risk for developing diabetes through sharing of data from connected-health devices. Founders: Sean Duffy (Harvard MD/MBA, Medgadget.com, Ideo, Google, Excel Everest), Adrian James (Ideo, Stanford mechanical engineering), Andrew DiMichele (Lattice Engines, Columbia computer science).
Pipette—Smartphone and tablet apps that give doctors easy-to-read reports on their patients’ health progress, featuring automatic identification of critical patterns and outliers. Founders: Ryan Panchadsaram (Microsoft, Salesforce.com, SeventyK, UC Berkeley Industrial Engineering and Operations Research), Jimmy Do (Microsoft, UC Berkeley computer science).
