The Strange Attractor
The Strange Attractor
The Future of Female Healthcare with Ariella Heffernan-Marks from Ovum AI | #11
When Ariella Heffernan-Marks traded her stethoscope for a Software Startup, she didn't just shift careers—she went on a mission to redefine women's healthcare through the power of AI. Our latest episode welcomes this tenacious CEO to share her story of resilience, defying sceptics to lead a platform that's transforming the way female health literacy and collaborative decision-making coalesce. Her insights weave through the potent mix of medicine, law, science, and technology, underscoring the potential of AI to augment the capabilities of healthcare professionals and personalise patient care.
Venture into the world of transdisciplinary innovation, where Ariella illuminates the power of creativity in science and the influence of diverse perspectives on patient care. Our discussion traverses her challenges as a med student turned Femtech innovator, the systemic issues undermining women's healthcare, and the strategic journey from concept to pilot of Ovum AI's platform. We examine the roles of AI in healthcare, and explore its potential to optimise for holistic healthcare while reducing the administrative load on medical professionals.
Listen as we unveil the future of women's healthcare shaped by technology, highlighting how Ovum AI pioneers accessible, intuitive care. Ariella's invitation to join their pilot program is not just a call to action—it's a beacon for a future where technology elevates women's health and well-being. She also shares her experiences around fostering partnerships and collaborations and lets us in on how honing her intuition has been essential to her success. Join us in a dialogue that's not only about innovation but an inspiring narrative around addressing AI biases, through uniting women to fill the gap and enhance diagnostics and treatment for women worldwide.
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Hello and welcome to the Strange Attractor, an experimental podcast from CoLabs, a transdisciplinary innovation hub and biotechnology co-working lab based in Melbourne, australia. I'm your co-host, sam Wines, and alongside my co-founder, andrew Gray, we'll delve deep into the intersection of biology, technology and society through the lens of complexity and systems thinking. Join us on a journey of discovery as we explore how transdisciplinary innovation, informed by life's regenerative patterns and processes, could help us catalyze a transition towards a thriving future for people and the planet. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Strange Attractor.
Samuel Wines:This week, we sat down with Ariella Heffernan-Marks, the CEO and founder of Ovum. So what makes Ovum AI kind of awesome is the fact that it allows you to track the evolution of your body, to make better evidence-informed decisions about your health and well-being, and then being able to share that sort of information with your doctors or whoever else that you're relating to, so that you can collectively, I guess, come up with better outcomes for you as a female body person. We think this is such an awesome technology, and I guess that's why we brought Ariela onto the podcast to have a chat about it. We highly recommend as well going on and having a look at their website, because they are doing a pilot test of the app at the moment. By the time this podcast comes out, that should be live, so please do jump on and have a look. Yeah, we think this is something that could be a really awesome asset for those who want to.
Samuel Wines:I guess, gain a bit better of an understanding of their overall health and wellbeing as a female. We hope you enjoyed this conversation with Ariella and thanks so much for listening. Ariella, welcome to the Strange Attractor. How have you been? What's been going on lately?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I've been good. So yes, just made the move from Sydney to Melbourne, left clinical medicine to now run Ovum AI full time, which is very exciting, daunting, learning a lot.
Samuel Wines:So that was recent that you made that transition.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, yeah. So finished internship in January with Jan. I was working on Ovum for my third year of med school through third year, fourth year internship and then decided to make the big jump, which is obviously really daunting when everyone's talking about residency and the training programs. I'm like I'm going to just go run an AI company, so bye.
Samuel Wines:What did your so cause cause? You also went through um the health 10 X UNSW program 23?.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:No, I think it was 22. It was a pre-accelerator. It was in my final year, I remember, because it coincided with my final med exams. Oh gosh it was a big few weeks, months. Yeah, I can imagine.
Samuel Wines:Yeah, what was it like mentioning that you were going to go down this pathway? Because imagine and this is a conversation we have with a lot of founders is that it's people kind of look at you being like what, what are you doing?
Samuel Wines:like you did all this effort to study med, or you did all this effort to do you know whatever that um pathway might be, and a lot of people seem to think like, oh, were you throwing it all away for for this thing like what, what? What did find was, I guess, the experience of going through that.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, you know, you said it perfectly. That's exactly what happened when I started doing, I guess, numerous accelerators and really delving into the idea of what Oven was. Back in third year, I remember you know people saying but you've decided to be a doctor, like why would you leave? Literally that's what they said. Why would you leave to do this? And third year, I remember you know people saying but you've decided to be a doctor, like why, why would you leave? Literally that's what they said. Why would you leave to do this? Like you're just making it's harder for yourself.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:And then I think, as the idea kind of came together and as I started to have a prototype and the idea became a reality, there was actually a lot of support, even in my final year, kind of, we have these portfolio exams. You have to give this whole speech about what you've learned in four years and what you're going to do. And I really said this is what I'm going to do. And it's because of all the skills I learned in medicine whether that's leadership, working in a team, communication, innovation, research.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Actually, there's a lot of key points you have to meet throughout your studies in medicine that lend to being a really good founder or ceo of a company.
Samuel Wines:So so glad you said that, because I think the exact same thing so much of science is a transferable skill when it comes to starting a startup. Like the research side of things is so it's pretty much that's pretty much the whole part of starting it. Like when you're first starting a startup is literally like okay, I'm gonna go out, do some research, I'm gonna collect information, I'm gonna analyze it, observe and then iterate on it.
Samuel Wines:It's like design meets science is kind of the way I think of like when you're starting a startup yeah and yeah people don't realize that you you're trained to be like this as a, as a doctor or as a scientist like you actually have so many foundational skills that can translate across so easily. And on top of that I love that you called that out that initially people are like what are you doing? What are you doing? And then eventually they're like okay, no, I get it. I understand and I imagine for you and I don't want to put words in your mouth, mouth, but at least this is what happened with us with CoLab is like you know, I could have gone down a conventional pathway, I could have done anything else. Um, I chose the harder pathway and I chose it. Or like we collectively chose it.
Samuel Wines:From a perspective of well, individually we might not be able to change the world right, but if we can make space to support a whole bunch of different people so that they can then become the people they want to be in service to the world or people on the planet, that statistically makes much more of a chance of actually having good things happen in the world, rather than just like doing a conventional sort of job and it's like yeah, it's painful, it's definitely a bit of a suffer fest, but in the long run. If you have that vision and you can actualize it, you know that there's going to be a lot more positive benefit that can come from it, even if there is a bit of a sacrifice and it's not your traditional pathway yeah, no, I couldn't agree more.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:And I love, I love the term suffer fest. It kind of makes it fun at the same time. You know, it's like a suffer festival, it's like you know, and it is a bit like that, but it's, it's, yeah, I think, lending back to creating change in within a system or for a population of people, right like in the hospital.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Um, yes, I could have followed the conventional pathway and helped probably hundreds, maybe over my career, of people, um, and there's obviously that really great interpersonal, you know, connection between you and that individual patient.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:But I felt, in terms of the hospital and the healthcare system, I couldn't really make much change. I was kind of stuck within that system. I was stuck within the bureaucracy and the administrative kind of politics and I'd always been interested in. I guess my background before med was law, science, so politics and I guess the law lended me to be involved in, you know, even during med school, in writing constitutions for my medical society, like I was always about being involved with AMSA, writing policies on COVID, for vulnerable populations. So it always lended to how can I use medicine to actually help populations. And I had this idea. I was like, well, this is actually a way that I can help potentially millions of women and that was what really drove me to leave. Sorry, that conventional path, like it did for you, was I can't in this, in this conventional job or this conventional pathway, I actually can't make the change that I feel I need to or can make, and that was, for me, what I felt I needed to do.
Samuel Wines:Yeah, I love that. It reminds me of a quote from Bucky Fuller. It's like don't try and change the system, create or design a new one that makes the old one obsolete. And I feel like, especially with what you're looking at doing, which we will get to, no, it's okay, I'm loving this. Yeah, I totally acknowledge we didn't quite go there to begin with, but non-linear conversationalist yeah, exactly um, but yeah, I guess it's.
Samuel Wines:That's the way I kind of. You mentioned the word system multiple times here as well and I do wonder, like, throughout your work, have you stumbled across much research into like system science and all of this sort of stuff? Because I know that from our perspective, uh, a lot of what we do is grounded totally in living systems thinking and acknowledge the interconnectedness from, like the biological, cognitive, social and ecological lenses of looking at life and how they all interrelate. And, like you know, I know gabo mate talks a lot about the biopsychosocial model and, yeah, like are these things like? And you're saying, like you have the law background, like it sounds like you're quite a transdisciplinary thinker. Then, like you're coming from the science, the med, the law, yeah, has that informed your perspective?
Samuel Wines:and practice like does this, does that give you disciplinary thinker? Then? Like, you're coming from the science, the med, the law yeah, has that informed your perspective? And practice Like does this, does that give you multiple lenses to perceive the world in a in like, almost like technicolor, rather than just the single colored lens of, say, med? Did that help you with co-creating Ovum and getting to where you are now and just being able to perceive things more holistically?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, it's super interesting because I think you never really reflect sometimes on how you cognitively maybe perceive the world. Right, you just perceive what you perceive. So it's actually a really nice insight to hear from you and make me think about. And I do think, yes, because the law and the way you're taught yeah, you're taught to think in the law is very much, um, analytical and evidence-based. In different way to it is to medicine, um, and then science I think lends to more innovation and creativity maybe than than medicine as such, because medicine's really about what does the meta-analysis show? You know, like the, the creativity, the innovation's been done for you, and then you need to apply that to the patient that's in front of you.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Of course, there is an element of diagnostic creativity, right?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So really trying not to diagnostic anchor and think about one thing as being the diagnosis for a patient who's undifferentiated, so that means they're presenting with a symptom that we don't know what's causing it, and I think, yes, together that's allowed me to, I think, probably look at a problem from a, you know, regulatory, legal point of view and ethical point of view than a creative, you know, kind of more science like how can we test this hypothesis in the real world and a lot of what I've done is OVM has been trial and testing. So whether that's doing 150 surveys with women between 16 and 70 and really understanding what they need, what they would pay, what their experiences are, running focus groups with over 50 women and now doing a PhD at the end of the year, which will be with three different hospitals which I won't go into names yet, trialling over them in a very clinical, evidence-based setting, and that's my medical hat coming on. Yeah, where's the literature review on this? Where's the meta-analysis on this showing how ovum can actually quantitatively change women's engagement in their healthcare?
Samuel Wines:That's really cool. I did not know you were going to do a PhD. Yes, great. That sounds really exciting because I imagine that yeah, I mean, even if you took the, the organization out of the mix and look at it from like a research perspective, I don't know anyone who's doing any research on ai impacts for, like, female health and well-being, so like that's like a, you're creating a solution to be able to support that, but you're also doing the research alongside it, and I find that's quite an interesting and holistic approach as well.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I couldn't not do some kind of research with Ovum as well as obviously, you know your commercial research right, that's your community-based setting and that's great for investors, but at the end of the day, this needs to be accepted within the medical community as well. To have this, because you know, what I'm trying to achieve is shared decision making for women going into appointment feeling they can advocate for themselves through improved health literacy and a doctor saying great, okay, let's share this conversation, let's let's decide on these things together, and that will activate change better, because we we know when we're looking at steps of change, someone needs to be on the pathway to change to actually start activating it. So you've got pre-contemplation contemplation. I'm sure you've heard of these.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So having shared decision-making and having a woman feel like she can go into that appointment and be part of that decision Sorry, kicking the microphone To start her change journey in whatever stage of her health span she's in allows for more preventative health behaviours. So for me it meant really proving in a hospital setting that Oven was achieving that and that would get more clinical or, you know, not just doctors allied health on board, which I already had, you know, so much support from before. We've even done this, so I can't wait to actually have the data points.
Samuel Wines:To me it makes total sense because what you're trying to do it's a win-win-win it's a win for the providers, it's a win for the people using the app and then it's a win for the furthering of the knowledge as a whole, because people can have more informed insights about their health and wellbeing. So, yeah, it's really exciting to just see how considered you've been with this approach. I tend to find this happens with almost every female founder. You sit down and have a chat with the level of thinking that has to go into coming up with an idea just to get past the biases that, let's say, a male founder might not have to go through. I always find that whenever I have a conversation, it's like so much more thought out and like, yeah, you've literally like you've really come at this from every angle you can think of yes.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:No, definitely have to be very, very thorough, very detailed. I think for me it's been probably, if we're touching on the female founder side of things has been being a female founder in the AI space, so I think that's where I've had to really delve into more and really prove out more than maybe other men in AI. When Ovum started, there was no AI, so it evolved. As you do with any idea, you pivot right, you adapt as there's new technology, as there's things that can make it better, and it actually just met at a really critical time point in our product timeline where it was here's a prototype, we've got the whole idea. Great. Oh, okay, open access, chat, gbts come out. Okay, what can we do with this? And we created an even better solve to our problem. But I was already pitching, I was already having conversations before AI and after, and like the shift in the conversation.
Samuel Wines:I can imagine was massive.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:It was and I actually spoke about it. I was on a panel at Digital Health Festival and I did touch on this is when I was now coming on as a female founder in AI. The focus was not on my domain expertise as a doctor, my domain expertise as a female, having dealt with chronic health problems, having tried to navigate the healthcare system with really good health literacy and still struggling, it was on why are you doing AI? How do you know how to do AI? Drilling on the really deep tech and I'm like I got like 10 AI engineers that are working with who are invested actually financially. You know them, um, and that's where the focus was and I get you know. You know people need to know how much I know, but it was. It was more of a condescending, undermining kind of approach where it wasn't balanced across my other skill sets or anything else I could contribute.
Samuel Wines:That was actually quite significant yeah, I can, I just, I'm just I'm not laughing because it's a good thing to laugh about I'm laughing.
Samuel Wines:I'm laughing because I'm just like we just see this happen quite a lot um and it, and it is such a shame that it's still the case, but I think I I don't have the answer to that right no but I think that at least acknowledging it and having conversations about it is a useful thing, and hopefully then those who are in those positions of whether or not they're deciding whether or not you're worthy of funding or something of the likes can realize that, yeah, like you don't, like. You don't expect a normal, like a normal male founder to go and do everything themselves. You're gonna delegate, you're gonna. It's no different in that sort of exactly like you're gonna build a team around this.
Samuel Wines:You're probably gonna get a cto on. You're probably gonna get like proper ai dev people on board that's already in.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:It's already in place, so you've already got it like exactly. So it's it's.
Samuel Wines:It's. It's fascinating that that that that happens, and I'm sorry that it has to happen.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:But it's um, I think, yeah, no, what I've come to the conclusion is it's actually and I don't think it's just with female founders in ai, I think it's female founders in general, it's the education piece, right, I think and also with female founders dealing with fem, fem tech or women's based solutions. I think there's a double whammy. It's all about the education.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I don't think that the gender inequity or I guess the comments that come across sometimes seem malicious. I don't actually think they are. I think it comes to a lack of understanding and a lack of being able to empathise with certain things, and that comes down to education. Knowledge is power and I think, as much as there's so much done for female founders, I think at the moment to try and raise awareness of this inequity, the lack of capital that's being given more programs that are literally designated for female founders. It's great the ecosystem's acknowledging that, but what the ecosystem isn't doing is educating and actually educating the men on what a female founder is really struggling with. How are certain comments perceived? What are actually commercial issues within? You know the femtech space? Um, because I think there's a lot of. You know there's barriers when it comes to talking about, um, the commercial benefit of a women's based solution, except now. The gender health gap report came out and it was fantastic, I was going to say your slides on this, like you blew that out of the water.
Samuel Wines:I remember watching, because we actually met at the Lift Hair Foundation and just hearing you articulate everything perfectly, I'm like, yeah, wow, okay, this is going to do very, very well, and I can't think of one person who I know that is, you know, female-bodied who would not want to utilize something like that.
Samuel Wines:I feel like it's a very reoccurring thing that they don't. Like a lot of females don't feel seen and heard, especially if their doctor's a male, because it's like, how can he even relate to these things? A lot of the time it's like, oh, you're probably just complaining about nothing. It's like, oh, you're probably just complaining about nothing. It's like, no, it's a chronic issue. Like there's so many things there and then, as you said, you called it out. You're like look, you're missing 50 of the market here like these are things.
Samuel Wines:Femtech is going to be massive, your, your entire, it's half the population of the world and it's like but it's just not being looked at or observed or acknowledged and that, again, you know, probably is because that a lot of the people in the positions of power where they can fund these things, they are of more than likely going to be like older men. They're not going to understand it. There might be a bit of fear or doubt or uncertainty around it and these questions that you're mentioning, I don't necessarily think they're from bad places well, I think a lot of the time.
Samuel Wines:It's just they actually might not know yes, exactly so fascinating to like. If that's something that you are interested in, I feel like it would be really cool. This is another time yeah, we can have a chat about like how could we get a couple of other female founders to talk about this, and like what would it look like to be able to try and get a whole bunch of vcs in the room? To actually have this conversation. Yeah, because I think there's something here that should probably be spoken about more openly and candidly.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, I think that I was actually at IDA. The co-founder of Clues House or Airbnb. She was here recently for Digital Health Festival and there was a few other Femtech founders. For anyone who doesn't know her, she coined the term Femtech so that was her phrase back in 2008, 2007. And it was great. It was meant to be just a bunch of women coming together and talking about what they were doing and how and problems, and it was great. But what we talked about was a Femtech society or I guess, yeah, society would probably be the best word. But there's a lot of Femtech founders who are female-based founders who would love to come together and, I think, educate and, you know, share, I guess, the journeys they've been on and the struggles they've had, and definitely, you know easily, you know, educate anyone in the room. I guess it didn't have to even just be male vcs. I'm sure there's plenty of women who may not fully understand it as well.
Samuel Wines:It can be for anyone who wants to learn yes, and there's just patterns of behavior that are baked in socially right and that's like what we're talking about before. You don't know the way you're necessarily thinking, unless you're actively practicing self-reflective consciousness and thinking what is my worldview, what are my beliefs?
Samuel Wines:what data do I draw from to then inform, like like from the observations, to then inform my worldview, like you don't necessarily notice that like ladder of inference. So I think, yeah, finding places to be able to call that out and bring that to light I think is important. Maybe we should, maybe I should ask you what you're doing Up here.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I'm loving the conversation, so it's fine.
Samuel Wines:What happened? What inspired you to start OV before it was over my eye?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:okay, so I guess go back. It was my third year of med school it's during covid so I was going between new south wales and victoria. I was in primary care, I was in ed and then hospital settings, but mainly in obstetrics and gynecology, because that's what I wanted to do. I had my background before that, during law science was reproductive biology, embryology. So that was really my driving factor to leave the law and go and pursue medicine. So I was doing a lot of those placements and I was in regional, remote but also urban parts of both states and I realized that fundamentally, women were completely disempowered with their healthcare, regardless of socioeconomic status. I realized it was due to fear of the healthcare system, so often going to Dr Google or TikTok rather than their healthcare provider, and that was due to and I think you touched on this, you know being dismissed, marginalised, often misdiagnosed, so really not trusting the healthcare system. Secondly, women were struggling to navigate a really siloed and fragmented approach to their healthcare. So on average it takes five years for any Australian woman to be diagnosed with a general health condition and then something more complex like endo seven to 12 years. So you know, you just think about that. The Australian healthcare system is pretty good and that's a really long time for someone to be suffering with something and impacting their quality of life Remember it's health span, not lifespan. And then thirdly was women were receiving treatments and diagnostics that were not reflective of a woman's physiology they're reflective of men's because they've been excluded from clinical trials for decade. That was due to reproductive burden. So I knew that we needed to basically create a solution that empowered women with their health care by improving health literacy and engage them more in preventive health activities, including engaging in the health care system, whilst at the same time integrating all their health information to create a longitudinal pattern that allowed us to pick up on better diagnostic patterns and earlier diagnoses, and then feedback that longitudinal data anonymously back into research to actually improve treatments and diagnostics for women.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So this is in my third. So at this time, ai was not being spoken about in the way it was now. And then from there I went and I spoke to Femtech Collective so that's a great organization which support any Femtech founders and I said this is my idea. Is this something? I said, yeah, we've definitely got a market. There's no one doing anything like this. I spoke to all the doctors, all midwives, patients to understand like is this something that would help, is this useful? Actually, I did forget to say something. It was really, I guess, when the actual moment happened, where I had the idea, which I think is a great story.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I was in a. We're doing children checks, so six-week checks and you have the baby book.
Samuel Wines:There's different colours in different states but blue book in New South Wales. I honestly don't even know what this is.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So you have a blue book. It's like literally just a bound little folder and you track their growth and their vaccines and everything. And I said, why doesn't that exist for women? And that was the idea initially, and then it was like picking up on all that, doing all the research as well, delving in I remember my first pitch. Deck the people at femtech collective were like you've just got way too much research in these slides. I'm like this is not a. This is not an academic uh presentation.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So I had to really tone it down. But as I delved into the research I realized just how prominent these problems were. I was just shocked, so, um, realizing that you know, 54% of women over the age of 15 have a chronic health condition in Australia, and by 65 that's 87%. It's just not good enough. Anyway, I get sidetracked. So from there, I developed a pitch deck, I kind of played around with Figma myself and put something together, and I did the Cicada Innovations Software as a Medical Device course. It was a three-day course. I couldn't recommend it more highly to anyone who's got a health tech idea and wants to understand commercialisation.
Samuel Wines:Fantastic. They're so, so good with their programming. Oh my.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:God, so good. And I learnt from, like, the regulations, the legal side, investors. I didn't know what VCs were. I didn't know what B2C or B2B2C. I was like, well, what is this? I was medically trained or legally trained, and so I learned in three days, learned a lot. And I met a lot of other founders a lot further along their journey and I was already pitching her to like get up there and pitch her idea like that. And there was one woman who was doing VR for PTSD. She said these developers are incredible. Go to them, they're expensive but go.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I was like okay, and I pitched to Nakatomi, who are now, they're actually now a venture studio. So they evolved since I actually started with them, but they co-invested with Ovum really early, so I pitched the idea. They then have been from idea to prototype to now the pilot version and likely coming on a CTO, cpo and that team. I have AI developers, I have design, marketing and data analysis business strategy you name it.
Samuel Wines:Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, I had no idea. So this is great. So I guess that is actually an area that we're super fascinated by, like Deep Tech Venture Studio. What could that look like? Yeah. So I'd love to understand more about what that journey's like, because for those who don't understand what a venture studio is, yeah, it's quite different to an accelerator or an incubator. Yes, could you maybe go into a little bit about what that experience has been like for?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:you and how that kind of is structured well, I guess for me it wasn't so structured because, uh, they weren't a venture studio when I first joined them but I think, I think.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I think the plan was true, so they'd already co-invested in one other company, because they were in a venture studio when I first joined them. Oh right, of course, but I think the plan was too so they'd already co-invested in one other company, which is Ruminati. I'm not sure if you've heard of them. They're a big ag tech company. My belief is they're involved with soil selection and whatnot. Sorry I could be wrong. So just yeah, but that was their first company they actually co-invested with. So they've already been working on, you know, doing a lot of deep tech stuff.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Other companies, but it was more, you know, just paid for and I guess they believed in me. So it was pitching, working with them, getting them to obviously co-invest, so that helped cover a lot of production costs I was also raising, so I did get early investment which helped that kind of journey along. And then I think they obviously saw and they have seen through the pitch, competition and obviously a lot of traction that I'm getting in the community. They've now wanted to potentially come on as CTO and CPO and that's that next, next stage of the journey. They're helping run the pilot, doing all the data, user analysis, have helped with you design marketing side of things. As you know, the companies evolve as new features have evolved, and I guess the great part about it is, as we've needed iterations, as I've had, you know, we've worked together. We have meetings every single week in person, online. It's consistent. It's because I think you know when we investors say well, if you don't have a co-founder, like you can't do this.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:You know you need a co-founder. You need a tech co-founder. I said I don't want a co-founder. That's not how I see my journey going. I don't. I need someone, especially if I'm dealing with health information really sensitive I need someone who's I'm not saying that co-founders can't be highly skilled, but I want someone with a lot of experience and we're working with big companies with really highly, highly sensitive data and Nakatomi had that experience and that's how I wanted Ovum to be from the get-go and I wouldn't change it for the world because every deliverable for Ovum has been the highest quality. I know they're personally invested as well. They're financially invested. So I've had this incredible relationship as I've developed and you know, I guess the problem for investors is well, every time you need to make a change, you have to pay more money. That's not how it works. I guess in a venture relationship, if they're co-invested in you, you know they want it to work as well right, yeah, no, no, it's.
Samuel Wines:It's just it's great to hear that, because I do feel like that is a direction that we need to be moving towards is it's like at least the way that we operate is? We operate like a venture studio but we don't even make investments in companies, so we provide a lot of hands-on support. We have a whole bunch of like marketing and content and can help with branding and narrative and storytelling. We can also get on the bench and help people with lab-based research. We can build a space to support like. I'm hearing what you're saying and I'm just like, yes, that that seems like it's something that is deeply needed in this space, but there's not that many people moving, moving into it as quick as what might be needed yeah, so it's great, I'm gonna look, I'm definitely gonna follow you up to look these people up because that sounds super exciting.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:They're Australian based and they're in Sydney. Yeah, great. Yeah, you should definitely look them up.
Samuel Wines:I feel like it's always Sydney.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, it's always Sydney, sydney. Yeah, we're not there yet, but it'll happen eventually.
Samuel Wines:We were talking about this before we were jumping into the podcast and kind of touched on it a little bit, I guess, with the biopsychosocial model. But I'm curious to see how you see AI kind of playing a role in supporting like ecological and social health and wellbeing. So you know, obviously benefiting the individual, but how do you reckon there could be sort of those flow-on effects into the broader systems?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, of course. I think when we think of ai, fundamentally it's, you know, productivity, efficiency, data analysis, pattern recognition and supporting humans in being able to use their emotional complexity and their cognitive complexity and their empathetic complexity to the best of their abilities. And, have you know, ai help with all the administrative, I guess tiring, exhausting stuff that we.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:that actually, I think, sucks a lot of emotional energy from our human capacity. So I guess if I say AI in healthcare, it's interesting. I definitely don't see AI as replacing the doctor, and I just want to make that clear because that's how I've really structured over. I see it exactly how I just said. I see it supporting the doctor or the allied health and the patient right in being to engage in their highest level of cognitive, emotional capacity that they can and doing all the data analysis, administrative, honestly, sometimes crap that ends up taking up probably 80 to 90 percent of our time, and I just left internship and I'm literally just typing on a computer most of the time right after doing four years of medical training.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I mean there is some great moments but, um, you know, you spend all day in a computer typing notes and it just sucks you dry, right. So I see ai coming on in that capacity and then, beyond that, what I see it doing is, you know, pattern recognition, data analysis to such a high, I guess, volume that we just can't do to be able to improve diagnostics. So not coming in and saying I mean we have, we do have AI doing this, which is you have this condition right. I see it saying here is the, the data, here are the trends, here are some things I've put together so this can be on the individual level or it can be on the I guess population level.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So if you're looking at it from an individual point of view, it can be. For example, we've already been playing around with the pilot. If you're someone going through stomach issues and you're trying to track diet right, you're putting in different food groups, like I've been trying low FODMAP, I've been trying low histamine, I've been trying keto and nothing is working. I can't figure out what is going on. You can put that all in OVEN, for example, and it says, well, have you thought about this, this and this food which actually is all linked to this? Like, oh, okay, and then if you put certain blood, blood results in, it'll be able to remember all of that and all your past medical history and allow you to say, oh, wait, that is something that is going on with me, and highlight that, but not diagnose you, rather encourage you. Okay, well, I can now go to the doctor and I should go to the doctor and ai can say well, here are some questions you should ask and this is how you can prepare right so it's that individual, I guess.
Samuel Wines:Sorry, I'll let you go no, no, no, no, that's. I was just that's just fascinating hearing you say that. So a I can see how this can integrate with, like my fitness pal, any sort of fitness app that you would be able to then, kind of like api, plug in, share data between these things and then being able to observe the patterns and processes and and go okay, because again, so many issues like ibs and that sort of stuff. So you're saying that you could potentially track these sort of patterns with food and all these other things Are you inputting like? I'm just trying, I'm trying to assume. Like, are we inputting data like I ate apples? Are you taking a photo of your dinner and then the AI reads that and goes okay, cool, is it like? What are your like? How are you thinking of integrating these things? Like, how?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:are you? So at the moment we are integrated with Apple Watch data. Yeah, just Apple at the moment. So smart watch data and menstrual tracking. So if you're using other apps such as clue or flow or whatever you have, if you sync to your apple health you're able to just sync that into ovum, so we'll have that at the moment for our pilot yeah and then medical records obviously only the results, so de-identified, and then any symptoms you're reporting so you can use voice recognition at the moment.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So, hey, this, this, this, and I felt, this, this, this. You can do that as many times a day as you want.
Samuel Wines:That's great.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:And it will remember and integrate all of that and it's got longitudinal memory, so everything you put in it will integrate and remember. It's not one-off conversations.
Samuel Wines:Great. So it's not like the GPT, where you've got a context window of, say, 5 000 characters it's like it's.
Samuel Wines:It's going to have a memory based on, so if correct me if I'm wrong. So you're sort of saying that it's going to build you up an individual data set with the more information you give it, the better. It's going to be able to predict or analyze the patterns and processes in your own life. But it will also then compare and contrast that to the broader population of data that you're gathering through the app as well.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, so we have your individual data is yours right? And then on the back end we've got our ML and our large language model, so that will be based off all the women who are using it. So we're getting real women's health data to train AI, because at the moment we know AI is quite gendered, because our global data sets are gendered. So we're trying to actually create the first women-specific AI and it's not at the end of the day, the data, the aggregated anonymous data, could be useful not only for healthcare but for numerous industries using AI for women, because right now it's not necessarily representative and I guess the way we're getting around that because obviously that's a bit of a chicken or the egg problem is only allowing them to access very specific resources at the beginning. Obviously, the pilot is a really big part of that, because we're really watching you know, how Ovum's talking.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:We've already been doing a month of that and making sure that it's, you know, accessing the right things. You know, hallucination's always a big issue with AI. I found Ovum's been really good but at the end of the day, we need more users and more people to use it and say it said this or it said that and really understand if you know it's working the way that we expect it to. I mean, that's part of a pilot, that's part of a beta testing phase, and we've already got over 130 women signed up, so you've mentioned this the pilot's going live next week no, yep, yep, cool yep, so very exciting.
Samuel Wines:We'll have to get the details to let people know we'll put it on there. That would be.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, that would be great, um, okay yes, so I guess the way I like to think of it is your personal health assistant. So the doctor has their receptionist who keeps all their files in order, knows their appointment times. That's over. For women, it's their receptionist. Hey, can I? Where's that blood test? When was my last cervical screening? Um, what does that mean? Like what does that random blood test they ordered mean? Like I know it's normal, but I don't know what you know, transferrin is as part of my iron test, or my anemia screen, like what does that mean? Um, and I think that's part of the education piece. And then putting that all together to understand. You know, when you're going through pcos, like there's so many hormones that are tested and there's so many you know complexities in that condition um, that is, you know, 10 minute appointment with the doctor, even if you have numerous specialist appointments it can still be disjointed, because it's usually months at a time and you want to be understanding yourself day to day right, I agree, it just makes so much sense.
Samuel Wines:It just helps you.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:You know, especially with cost of living crisis, being able to afford to go to the doctor that regularly is difficult, right? There's less bulk billing, that's kind of moving out Specialist appointments at right. And there's less bulk billing, that's kind of moving out specialist appointments. At least we've seen with medicare. Recently there was um, an item number change to cover for longer kind of guiding appointments because that previously wasn't covered for women with endo who are dealing with complex conditions. That's great um, but at the end of the day guiding lists of waiting times of two and a half years.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So you know that's why, you need something in between, as and this is where I guess circling back to your question about AI and like ecological social impact is. So, yes, it's helping the individual, you know, understand themselves, you know, during this time. And with that comes better health literacy. And we know, with better health literacy comes less medication errors, less hospitalisations, less chronic disease, more confidence in the population with themselves and with the healthcare system. And then, on the other end, we're looking at, okay, burnt out doctors, doctors who don't feel like they're paid enough for what they do, doctors who have been sucked emotionally from administrative burden. And that's where AI comes in, not just from OVIM. There's plenty of AI, just digital from over. There's plenty of a digital health. So many amazing ai tools coming out to you know, help doctors with writing notes and recording, you know meetings and you know things like that.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:But I think what over will come in for women and their health care provider, whoever that may be, is that it will help the doctor kind of go. Okay, I don't need to start, you know, know out here with this appointment. I know exactly where this woman needs to get help. It's exactly what she's been, just, you know, reporting over these last few weeks before she's come here, she's got all of her blood tests here in one space. I'm not asking the receptionist to chase this through fax to come over here and then I don't have it. It's, you know, helping the doctor pick up on diagnostic patterns too.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:And we have that UX in there, so it's easy for them to understand.
Samuel Wines:Yeah, it just makes so much sense to me. I love this concept of like a lot of companies that we see now that are coming through the ranks. It's power through empowerment and trying to squarely, I guess, shift that balance. And it's not that there's obviously there's going to be a balance of power between, like, a medical professional and an individual, yeah, but it kind of shifts it into more of a like a collaborative, dynamic relationship rather than a power over or even a transactional, like, as you're saying, like I've got 10 or 15 minutes, like all right, let's go, go, go, go go, whereas if you can be relating to this, this interface, and providing it with information and data, that can then create a summary for a doctor, and then you know they can pull that up and then suddenly you're getting straight to the informed insights and having that conversation, so that every word counts.
Samuel Wines:You know, rather, than it just being coming in and going. This feels like it was totally pointless. Now I have to wait until like another couple of weeks or a couple of months, so I just I can. I really appreciate the level of thinking you've put into this, because it really is a systemic solution. Thank you. And yeah, I just want to honour that because, like, a lot of people might not necessarily have that wide boundary thinking perspective and you're really trying to go how is this a win for everyone? I love seeing people coming up with clever ideas like that. So, thank you, kudos to you for that.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Thank you, um it's been a big yeah, it was a big problem and it was yeah honestly. So many people said this is a really big problem I don't know how you're going to solve this. And even like when I at Cicada, it was like this is a problem and it does need solving, but I think it hasn't been done because it's too big. Like that was some of the feedback I got. Like what technology, like how are you going to do this?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I mean AI wasn't a. When I did this course, ai was not at the forefront and obviously has been a big solve, but at the same time, it comes with its own you know issues which I've addressed. But yeah, no, that was what I was faced with and I, honestly, while I was doing med school and all these things, I don't know, I just kept going, I just kept going. I don't know one foot in front of the other, you just do it.
Samuel Wines:Yeah, we can relate to that as well and it's only impossible until it's done.
Samuel Wines:It's like a four-minute mile with all this sort of stuff and, realistically, like, none of the current world problems that we face have been solved. They are interconnected, interdependent, wicked, crazy, complex problems that we all face, but it's up to the next generation to come through and go. I think I can find a solution that will be able to support and address this and provide not just financial return but also social or ecological return because, like, ultimately we've gone so far past sustaining things. We need to be actively supporting regenerating. You know, people's life energy and also the planet's like life energy. So it's just so exciting when I come across companies like this. That's why I was like we need to sit down for a chat, because this is awesome.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:More people need to know about this and thank you. I think it was great to, honestly, after the pitch, to have a group of you guys come up and be like this is amazing, like this needs to happen for women and women's health. I was like, yes, that's what I want to see, like I want to see it comes back to this education piece and I think it's you know, it was great to have that Like you guys come up to me at the pitch event, really. So I just need some water.
Samuel Wines:Yeah, go for it please. We've been going on for a while, so that's all good. I was choking at the very start. I was getting way too excited for the conversation and then the coffee went down the wrong way. So I totally get you there, um, whilst you're grabbing a drink, I I was thinking we, we touched on it a little bit there. Right, we were talking about how, like you think there could be a lot of social and ecological benefit.
Samuel Wines:But what I think would be really interesting we know we've had this conversation, I know that you've mentioned it in a pitch before, but you are kind of looking at exploring ways in which you can make ovum free, so that it could potentially because this is this is always going to be an issue is that, um, you know this tech and all these concepts. They're great. They cost a lot of money to make happen. Who's going to pay for it? How do we ensure that it's equitable and fair access? And you know whether that's a model where some people might pay, or you could do a light or free for those who can't afford it, similar to, you know, sam harris's waking up app, right?
Samuel Wines:yeah if you email them and ask you can get it for free, yeah, if you can pay, you pay, like, have you like? Where are you at with exploring this, because I know that that's something at the forefront of your mind. I'd love to see where your thinking's gone or where you've developed your thinking in this sort of accessibility space.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, no definitely, I think, for me, I mean to make the biggest impact, access the most women, and I want this to be a global app, not just national, and I want it to be available to women at all stages of their lifespan, regardless of their socioeconomic status, of their cultural status, of what language they speak.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:It needs to be accessible to every woman. That is my goal. Of course, you have investors and you've got to have a commercial model. So the way in which I've structured it is at the moment it would be a subscription base, so $10 a month for one woman or $17 to pay it forward for another woman who can't afford it.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Lovely and that's tapping into that kind of equitable, altruistic model and a lot of women have been like, honestly, I want to use it more now because you have that option, honestly, and that just shows how amazing women are and how much they want to support each other. It's incredible. But if I can secure industry funding first before I go live into a commercial market, that would be preferable. So, whether that's insurance covering it for international as well as not just permanent residents in Australia, because I think that's a really big population initially, and then obviously seeing how we could scale that globally, or if it's certain pharma that are interested in the research, how can we actually create treatments and diagnostics that are better for women? So not from a marketing advertisement capacity.
Samuel Wines:I was going to say, like if I was putting my hat on and trying to think outside the box would be like you could set up a research institute around this.
Samuel Wines:So, you're doing your PhD. I can see how this could become like a female health and wellbeing research like lab where you're going to be looking at all of this data and trying to make sense of it all and think how can we try and optimise this LLM? And I could see that there could be funding coming from the research and development side of things to be able to cover some funding.
Samuel Wines:But then there could also be be, you know, as you sort of suggested like and rightly so is that this could also be an industry-led thing. Someone like a like a medibank or a bupa could come to the table and go. You know what great idea. We're happy to cover all of our members yeah, exactly, you know so and because it makes sense, it's a vested self-interest, like i'm'm sure there's a lot of people.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:There's reimbursement costs right Less hospitalisation, less medication errors.
Samuel Wines:Exactly.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Preventing your health right. Stop people having chronic disease, and then you won't have to pay so much for their healthcare.
Samuel Wines:Yeah, to me it just feels like they will be your biggest advocates to begin with, because they know. I mean, they have all the data and they're looking at things and they are. You're not in the insurance business. Okay, we're going to get what I say there, but you're making money out of that, right. So you're not going to be in a situation where you're not making money, which is why healthcare is going up a lot because everyone is getting sicker and sicker.
Samuel Wines:So if we can move away, as you're sort of saying, like a lot of our healthcare is geared around getting you from um, like like chronic to okay or like acute, acute to good, but there's nothing that's really looking at trying to get you from good to great and it really feels like this app is exactly aimed towards that. It's like we don't just want to be surviving.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:We want to be thriving. Yes, that's a big one anyways, you know, longevity is obviously a big topic at the moment so hot right now so hot right now. Longevity um. I'm reading outlive. Have you read it really good?
Samuel Wines:I I'm like an active avoider of the longevity space, just from a purely biological perspective of like everything has to meet its end.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:It's so true um, even organizations.
Samuel Wines:Like you know, if someone comes along and does exactly what we're doing, way better than us. Great, you know, we'll compost this and we'll allow the nutrients to disperse, and then we'll go and work on something else, that's how all of life has always worked, and that's how evolution constantly works. It's like it's evolution in the context of a species, not an individual like but anyway, so I guess.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I think it's it interesting. I mean, the way I've perceived longevity is more of a link with like preventative health. So it's about.
Samuel Wines:Lifespan rather than healthspan. Other way yeah.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Healthspan rather than lifespan. So how many years and this is what we, when we are looking at introducing things into the healthcare system and like health economics is you know, how many years of disability does this person have? And, using this intervention, how many years less of disability do they have? So it's like looking at their health span. How many years are they living in good health without disability, whatever that disability may look like, whether that's mental health conditions, whether that's pain, whatever that is. And actually, interestingly, in the Gender Health Gap Report, it showed that women are having many more years lived in in poor health than men. Um, like significantly a longer amount, and I think it's 25 times more. Um, when I looked at the research, you should definitely have a look at it's like pretty shocking.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Um, so I guess for me it's. My interest is well, if women's health span is so much worse than men's, then we really need to be focusing on preventative health for women. And the stats I talked about with chronic health conditions, you know that kind of drastic increase in chronic health conditions amongst women. Women do suffer more than men from chronic health conditions. But that's also because I think there's not much addressing women's physiology different and how it's different to men's physiology. Like we do have more complex hormones going on and they don't just affect our reproductive system. They, they sorry, they affect our cardiovascular system, our neurological system.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Like women are a greater risk of, um, you know the biggest killer of women is cardiovascular disease more risk of dementia, um, it's all linked to our hormones over our lifespan and that's why it's really important to be, I guess, collecting this longitudinal data, but also introducing preventative health measures for women when it comes to things like cardiovascular disease and cognition and all these things that are not just reproductive, which is where I'm trying to step in as well I was going to say that sounds like this is my logical.
Samuel Wines:I was going to ask you about this because it makes total sense to me. Is that, as you're sort of saying, it's yes, it's reproductive health?
Samuel Wines:to begin with. But realistically you are a whole system, you're a whole being and there is so much more going on and, and to your point right, the the nuances and complexities that go with the female cycles of life, like you are just like 100% more complicated than men in terms of like how. But it's true, right, like men it's like a 24-hour phase of like you're on. You wake up like the testosterone goes like this, and then it'd be that's pretty much it every day. That's like. That's why the work week is totally geared towards men and everything, like everything to do with work is like go, go, go, go go constantly, whereas females, it's like, realistically, you have like a week, maybe a week and a half, of like power where you get like the amount of work a guy would get done in a month, done in in a week and a half, and then either side of that you're kind of like, oh god, I don't feel great and and it's like we don't acknowledge that and and these are things that being able to.
Samuel Wines:I mean it's, it's getting more trendy now I'm sure you'd see this everywhere.
Samuel Wines:It's like you know, matching your workouts with your cycles and um, even with work as well. It's. It's nice to see that people are trying to go okay, cool. Well, I should actually pay attention to this and how to weave that in um and I can imagine that over my eye. Like this could also be woven into a like, let's say, health and well-being, so like a, like a not necessarily personal trainer, but like fitness nutrition, like yeah 100, just the whole, exactly.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, yeah, no, over me is very. I guess it is wellness but it's not diagnostic. It's advisory.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:It's here let me help you understand yourself better. So even a conversation I had with Ovum recently, I just did my whole onboarding which goes through all of your past medical history, your screening, and we'll advise you. Well, if you haven't had that check, then you should. And I said I just don't have a symptom, I just want to understand my body better. And he just started talking to me and asking me questions about my diet. My exercise obviously could link with my Apple health, so I saw how many steps I was doing and this and that and it was great. It just, you know, it ended up through our conversation, planning me a whole week of what I needed to do to fit in my relaxation, my mindfulness, water intake, you know, diet based on what I was reporting and my past medical history. So I have migraines, I put that in there. So it really tailored a whole schedule for me. I was like that's what I need. I needed someone to say not here's what you have to do, this is how you do it.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:And that's you know where. I guess again, when you come back to this change and you're kind of, you're not in that contemplation, so you've got like absolutely no contemplation, you've got pre-contemplation, half of that in that space moving from pre-contemplation to actually action, or contemplation. And action is really not just education but support on how do I actually do this, how do I bring this into my life. I think that's the hardest part Removing those barriers to change.
Samuel Wines:How do we create healthy habits around this?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, exactly.
Samuel Wines:I can imagine like baking that, like that was another thing I was going to ask, because I can really see there being like a really strong like psychological play here as well not from like a let's manipulate people, but you get what I mean, like we can okay cool. We know how people think.
Samuel Wines:We know that you know people take the path of least resistance and you need to be removing all the barriers to change, and we need to be starting with implementation intentions and stuff like this to be able to then get people to go. You know, I will, just, you know, get up and start doing this routine, rather than expecting them to get up and, you know, expecting them to get up and you know, do three workouts in the first week, plus two runs and a minute.
Samuel Wines:Like you know, you're never going to get going to hit 100 like. So also baking all of these ways of encouraging and relating to people exactly, um and understanding because, like you could kind of program it that looks like you can ask people how do you respond best to like um feedback? Do you want to be given positive encouragement, are you? Someone that actually likes to be like, not just like. Oh, I think you could actually probably push 20% harder in this. Are you someone who relates well to the negative? Positive?
Samuel Wines:It's so true, everyone's so different, yeah, and rather than it just being like a PT or someone coming to you and being like this is the thing, it's like you could do this and you could be like, oh, actually I'm not really feeling that, and then come back and be like, yeah, but you should probably still do it, or okay, cool, that's fine. Maybe we try this.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, and you can say that to them. You can say you know, I want you to, you know, be much more strict with, like you know, setting a schedule for me.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:You can say I want something really more relaxed and the pilot will only have a few push notifications because they're trying to balance that at the moment. It will just kind of remind you, you know, to kind of log how you're feeling and kind of engage in that reflective, that self-reflective behavior when it comes to your body. But you know it will, you know, remind you about medications or, if you want it to remind you about appointments or remind you to do certain things that will hopefully be in our commercial version. Crazy, I can, yeah, I can.
Samuel Wines:I can imagine like this brings me into the next thing. I wanted to appointments or remind you to do certain things that will hopefully be in our commercial version. Crazy, I can yeah, I can.
Samuel Wines:I can imagine, like this brings me into the next thing I wanted to ask you about would be collaborations. Have you thought, like I can imagine, that Apple Fitness would eat something like this up? Have you thought about having chats with, you know, with Apple or with Garmin or with any of these other Fitbit leading providers who might go? You know what? We've got this side of it covered, like, really well, this is going to be so complementary, like are you trying to come in as a hey, like I'm here as a collaborator, and complementary, like let's look for win-wins. Like what's your approach when trying to find partnerships and collaborations?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, no, definitely. I believe that you know there's a lot of really successful companies doing amazing things with health data. I guess the best example for how we're trying to integrate the moment is through Apple Health, but we haven't had official partnerships with any of these companies yet. But I think the aim would be to pilot, show how women are using it, show what data we're collecting, seeing how it's being used and then going to these companies whatever we think is most aligned in terms of our mission and values of women's health and see how we could collaborate. It would also be interesting to speak to users and see what they would want as a collaboration, because I feel like there'd probably be some companies they'd want and some they wouldn't. I think you know also trying to collaborate with really early stage tech companies as well that are doing awesome things, which I think you introduced me to as well.
Samuel Wines:So I don't know if I can go into names. No, no, of course, of course. So Cimex, yes, Cimex.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:We are, you know, just talking about how we could integrate as a package for women, which would be really, really interesting. So they are a patch that measures hormones. Uh, at the moment it's just, you could, just a singular use, but we're looking at what we could do with that, which would be super interesting, because I think a lot of women that were coming to me at the digital health festival were in perimenopause and they're, you know, feeling that they can get their hormones checked with the doctor.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:A lot of women have actually come to me saying doctors aren't allowing me to get my blood test done and check my hormones which I've been shocked by.
Samuel Wines:I've had the exact same thing as a dude. Yeah, I was told like get out of here. You're healthy and fine and you're within the limits with this. And I was like I just know that I wasn't 100% like with the limits. It's like if you're here in a bandwidth where it's like between 2 to 15,. I don't have anything to give you the exact thing right?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, no, that's fine. I don't even remember all the reference.
Samuel Wines:If you're 2.1, that's yeah sure that's within range but, like that's probably not great, you know what I mean. Yeah, and then I found that in the current system like I would never be allowed to go like okay, this is great. Can I just keep testing these because I want to know where I'm at. I'm trying to improve it's pattern recognition.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:How is this changing over time? How is this changing with my diet, with my exercise, with my symptoms? Like am I feeling things in certain parts of the year that I really want to? Understand why I'm feeling them. You know, I myself, as I said, like I've had migraines and stuff and trying to understand and any migraine stuff I try to understand.
Samuel Wines:My partner's the exact same. Yes, just constantly. What triggers it?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, what foods. And it's so hard to remember because when you're in that much pain that's like your world right, and then you have to try and reflect when you're out of that like what you ate and what stresses you had and at what point in the day you get a migraine.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:just thinking about the migraine, literally, what were your hormones doing? I don't know. I didn't go to get a blood test, I was trying to cope, so I think that there's. You know, I'm not saying get blood tests all the time, because obviously it costs and the government pays for it, but I think there is something to be said. I think that was his main issue. He was like you're fine, yes, yes. So that is big. And I think you know there is a thing about doctors overordering blood tests and I do want to acknowledge that from, obviously, a doctor's point of view, I do think there is a space for biomarkers being tracked.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I agree Maybe it's not just like through a blood test, like this patch, um, where we can track things more regularly. I think we're making a great way in terms of having like the aura ring and I mean femtech kind of reference to which is looking at basal body temperature and and sleep and things like that consistently. But we I think there is something to be said, especially for hormones like what are hormones doing, you know, week by week, and how is that correlating with someone's symptoms, how they're feeling? It's so different for everyone. How can you say one reference range is okay for every single person?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:because it's not how the world works yeah, we're so different um and I think, yes, not just for women, it's really important. So we recognize men too. Obviously it's a bit more, it's it's more simple, but stuff changes, especially as you get older. Right, men do go through hormone changes.
Samuel Wines:Especially with testosterone. That's like a major thing and, like with so many people at the moment suffering from low testosterone or being super stressed or not being able to conceive, like all of these things are interrelated, right, it still takes two people to tango when it comes to.
Samuel Wines:I guess why I'm bringing this up is that I can see how this continuous hormone monitoring patch that simex are working on, like yeah sure, they're doing it for ivf, right now but like you call that, it could be for people perimenopausal or postmenopausal or even anyone at any stage just trying to understand themselves better in the biomarkers, like I can see how there could even be something for for males to be able to track this. So you don't have to go in and get a blood test, you could just run these lab on a chip sort of things similar. I don't know if you know neutromics as well they're another group doing similar sorts of things.
Samuel Wines:So, again, happy to make that intro, um, but yeah, there's a lot of people working on this sort of stuff that I can see could be a great way to alleviate a lot of the burden and pressure and stress on the system, which can help people get from good to great.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So, yeah, it's exciting to see that you're looking to integrate with them as well, definitely looking at how they can be like a wellness focused as well, and how we can make this accessible to more women, because I think you know ivf is a big problem, but only so many people can afford to do that. So how can? And that, like the right to understand your body and your hormones over time, should be right for every, every woman. So how do we do that? And we're in discussion, we're collaborating, we're talking um trying to figure out how we can do that, but you know they're obviously still in pilot stages and trials, similar sort of.
Samuel Wines:You know similar location, maybe arguably a little bit you know further over the clinical trials but yeah, yeah, it'll be interesting. I look forward to seeing how that will kind of yes, me too.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Hopefully, fingers crossed. If not, I think ovum definitely wants to move into a device space at some point. So, um, whether we move into, I've always really dreamed of having a really nice. Like you know, there is obviously Fitbit and there is is it Woosh? It's like a.
Samuel Wines:I'll believe whatever you say. If you say it with confidence, it's another smart watch.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Very popular amongst athletes and it's all great, but everything's very masculine looking. So can we create something really aesthetic and beautiful for women to wear that they feel they can wear all the time without kind of being masculinised? Yeah so that would be a goal. Obviously not right now. It's like get the app on the app store and get women using it and then see from there. Yeah, but it's always fun to like, yeah, to dream, to innovate.
Samuel Wines:Let's imagine, and then, yeah, okay, vision had to drain to innovate. Let's imagine, and then, yeah, okay, vision board. Yeah, it's like I love the divergent thinking, but it's always having to come back and converge on like, okay, cool that one foot in front of the other, like you were saying before, like what's that next step?
Samuel Wines:what's that next step? And keeping the horizon of possibility as wide and open as possible so that you can kind of relate to what has to emerge to get to that next place. So, no, it's good to hear you kind of operate on a similar sort of way of thinking. We spoke about this before we started the recording. Yeah, so, like a lot of your you were saying, like a lot of your business decisions, it's actually you kind of intuitively make these decisions. So, whether that's someone to talk to or a meeting to take, or a podcast to sit down and have a conversation about, um, what role do you think intuition plays for you as a, as a founder, and and and what made you decide to call that out rather than, you know, maybe just not acknowledge it, because yeah, no, um, interesting.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Uh, I think that I was always. I think, even if you go back to that story of me in the car having an idea and just being like, okay, this is going to be what I do now Like where where did that come from? I never had dreamed of being like a CEO of a tech company, like I'd always. I'd always been interested in the future of technology and how it could impact the human species. Like I think that's what drew me to law of science.
Samuel Wines:We are the technology, like humans and technology. Yeah, it's just so Part of us.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, and I think that like this is me using like tuning into intuition, actually seeing how it was actually affecting me, like years before, was this is going way back? So tell me if this is like going away off beaten path or whatever that saying is. But I was. I remember you know you choose your subjects when you're applying for the monash book and I'd actually before that. No, I had to drop methods. I was doing methods one, two. I had to drop methods three to four because I was like I don't need this. I covered all my bases for law. I was like I guess biology is really interesting.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I really like how genetics like works, like how humans work and I love biology, so I did law science because I was looking at this brochure and it had this kind of stem cell type tech you know what those booklets look like and I was like science, like law science, I want to get into stem cells, I want to get into tech and how we create humans and ethics. And then I was like hey, medical malpractice litigation.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:That's what I wanted to do so ironic, and it was like that's why I did reproductive biology and embryology and I was like I just love this, it's a passion, and it was me just acting on intuition, I'm just going to do this because I just want to, and then I just followed that. Then I just followed that and through that, I then fell into medicine and then, through medicine, I had these experiences that allowed me to actually then sit in the car that day and go, yes, this is it, this is like what I'm gonna do. This is this is it and it wasn't.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Oh, don't be stupid, this is like you know. I just ignore that feeling, ignore that thought. I followed it and every time someone said this problem's too big or you can't do this, it was like almost like I intuitively knew so well that I had to do this and it was somehow going to work, that it didn't affect me Like. This is me really reflecting. I don't think I consciously knew.
Samuel Wines:No, I love this. I can Totally relate.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah.
Samuel Wines:Have you seen Dune 2?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yes.
Samuel Wines:So you know the scene where he says I can see all potential possibilities. Many of them are horrible, but there is a thin line where we succeed and I feel like that's like every founder with these sorts of ideas is.
Samuel Wines:You're like no, it's tangible, it's tactile. It's like you can feel that there is something here and you know that it's it's. It's tangible, it's tactile. It's like you can feel that there is something here and you know that it's possible. You also know that there's going to probably be a shit ton of luck involved with getting to that point, and it's not necessarily going to be all skill-based, but you're kind of like I know I can see it.
Samuel Wines:If only everything can coalesce around that. Um, I just thought that was funny hearing you say that it's great. It's great, it's the same as us. We were the same. We're like this is going to suck, but there is a thin line of possibility of being able to bring something like this together.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, and I think it was. Yeah, I don't know because I think you have to have. You have to tune into that because you get so many no's and you get so many pushbacks with any founder any idea, and I just didn't. It was just so in my gut that I this was what I had to do, that.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I just didn't let it affect me, like, of course you have those days you're like, oh, that really sucked, that was a crap meeting. But then you have these people come. She says it's amazing, this has helped me so much. This is you know you, you should be doing this. This is the most incredible idea. I think you have to follow that. Um, I think an interesting one you touched on is like commercial decision making and like who to take meetings with and things like that. I think most of the time I'm pretty. I'm pretty much a yes person. You never know where a meeting is going to go initially, but I will use my intuition to gauge after that meeting. So how did I feel with that person? Did I feel uncomfortable? Did I feel not myself? If I have that feeling, it doesn't matter what they're offering.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I'm just not going to engage anymore amicably, but I think it's really important when you are a founder and you're trying to make decisions and you need as much as you can get, I think it's important to still be selective, sure. And not just take everything that?
Samuel Wines:is thrown at you, but it sounds like what you're sort of saying here. There's actually something here. I want to kind of unpack it sounds, if I'm going to interpret what you're saying. It's like it's also don't be completely rational about it Like just because someone's got the money doesn't mean you should be paying attention to that. It's like lit, like what does, what does not just your head say, but what does your heart say and what does your gut say? Like and and and that more holistic, making sense, like I don't know if you know the.
Samuel Wines:Have you heard of the concept of jung's four ways of knowing? No, so like. There's intuitive, intuitive knowing, um, then there's, I guess uh, I know for vague he says propositional, but like the intellectual knowing. So, like I know that you know the it's not actually a sunrise, it's an earth rotate or whatever. Like you know, you can know something in that way. Then, yeah, there's intuition, there's emotional, so emotional ways of knowing, so you can, you can relate to it in that way. And then also somatic, so like the felt, experiential, um, like, or movement based ways of knowing so you know that could be.
Samuel Wines:You know something like I know how to ride a bike, but it could also be I know the pain that I'm feeling is real. Yeah, right, so it feels like what I'm hearing you say. You're kind of trying to balance those different ways of knowing, whether you know, have the framework to make sense of it or not. You're kind of, when you're leaning into these things it's like okay cool, all right, how am I feeling? Okay cool, yep, this makes sense to progress with this forwards rather than it just being like fully rational sort of like yes, it's.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, it's definitely it's, it's true. It's really interesting. I'll read more about that framework that sounds oh, I'll send it across, please.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Please do. I love that stuff. Yeah, I think that with my intuition and the way in which I make decisions, I don't think I've necessarily have I been taught it. I think, on one hand, yes, because I've done law, I've done medicine. It's all about rational thinking and how to make evidence-based decisions and drawing from X amount of propositions how, how do you reach, you know the best and it's deep analytical thinking. However, you don't get taught intuition and you don't get taught emotional intelligence. Really Maybe in medicine like. I think they're doing better at trying to teach emotional intelligence.
Samuel Wines:I get what you mean I?
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:think that I think you can, can definitely like I've got a business coach who is now really delved into, like not only my intuition, but like my cognitive biases and like what's my saboteurs and how is that affecting decisions I make or things I feel, and I think that has allowed me now to reflect on everything I've just reflected on with you and say this is what's going on and this is how it's working. But there was nothing during those times which was saying to me you are using your intuition right now exactly, it's not.
Samuel Wines:It's not mechanical it's not structured. It's like you. You're constantly. It's an interplay between all of those ways of knowing at all times and it's just whether or not you acknowledge that one is like we have kind of a hypertrophy in the intellectual way of knowing in our world and especially as like a male-bodied person it's definitely that tends to be the case over in our sphere.
Samuel Wines:But yeah, it's interesting to hear that you sort of like whether you know it or not, you are kind of balancing that and I guess the reason why I bring this up is because you see this with all the successful founders is that your idea is only going to go so far in the outside world, as you've done the inner development yourself. Right, because everything you do as a founder is relational. Everything you do is based on how you as an individual being relates to others and to the world at large. And if you have any blockages or things where you're stuck in your own personal development, any shadow side things you're going to project out there or what have you, these things will rear their head at some point in time and they will stop like you have no choice but to face them eventually it's true and it is kind of like uh, I don't know, I find it, I don't want to, I don't want to.
Samuel Wines:I don't want to say that, because it sounds so kitsch to say that.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Okay, I really want to hear it.
Samuel Wines:I know, but it just sounds like the worst words to put together. But, like starting an impact-oriented business almost is can also sometimes be the spiritual work to allow you to further develop your own being in service of the whole. Yeah, definitely. It just sounds like a really dirty way to put those two words together, like business and spirituality, but like I really do, feel there's so much spirituality, I think in social impact business I do.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Personally I mean, yeah, go on.
Samuel Wines:Sorry, I interrupted you no, no, please interrupt away, go for it.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah, no, I just think that a lot of things that have come out of my business have allowed me to connect to people in such a deeper way than just being a doctor. You really do have an opportunity to connect to people in the most vulnerable situations. But you're the doctor, right, you're the doctor. There's always, as we talked about, there's a power dynamic which I always try to really not have with my patients, unless it was, you know, they were not listening to really sane medical advice. Yeah, but I think you know, through these focus groups that I've been running with women, we'll get together anonymously so everyone has a different emoji and everyone speaks to each other.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Oh, eggplant, oh yeah, burger, I had the same thing. Actually. It's a really good icebreaker and it's been great like I've done this with 50 women, so I've done like seven to ten at a time and it's just the conversations that we're having and the honesty about experiences that they've had in health care have allowed me to just and and then I've been able to like kind of bond in these conversations as a doctor and as a woman also going through these things and it's, you know, I've been kind of coming in this like leadership role but also also being part of it and then I'm linking all these people together and I just that that's been amazing.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:And then doing these well um, ovum wellness events. So we've been trying to really build community around ovum. We're not just an app that wants to just provide a service. We really want to build community around Ovum. We're not just an app that wants to just provide a service. We really want to build community about encouraging women with health literacy. So we're doing just at the moment body let's talk about body love.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So it's all about body image and, I guess, understanding the spectrum of disordered eating to eating disorder and doing beautiful Pilates, nourishing lunch and having 30 women at a time learn about how do we speak to our bodies better.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Because right now, especially after COVID and the diet and wellness culture has just gone, you know, through the roof with social media, we don't speak well to ourselves, and I don't think it's just for women, I think men as well, everyone. But the connection and like the feeling in the room when we've been running these sessions, these panels are usually at Women's Health GP to to be there as well. It's just been phenomenal like we're getting anonymous questions from girls who have experienced eating disorders, have someone who has, or the inner group of girls who they feel is exacerbating dangerous kind of eating behaviors for them. And I just wouldn't have been able to do that if I just again would go back to staying in the conventional, if I hadn't started my own business and, like, come into this leadership role. Like it's opened up this whole deeper connection to women that I just wasn't able to achieve before.
Samuel Wines:No, I can resonate deeply with it.
Samuel Wines:I just always feel awkward sometimes talking about these things because I mean, our entire business came from like a, let's just say, a moment of a similar sort of like, a insight of like realizing the interconnectedness of everything and being like, oh shit, like okay, we really need to be trying to help humans connect with themselves, with others and the world around them, and bio-based, bio-led design and innovation seems like a really easy pathway to make that connection, and you can talk to these sort of metaphors.
Samuel Wines:But, yeah, I think it's really exciting hearing you say that, because I do really think that the leaders of tomorrow are the ones who it's not leading from the front, it's leading from within the pack and it's trying to, as we said before, the power through empowerment. But it's also like a very like you're a weaver, you're trying to connect the dots, bring people together, allow them to have the agency and, acknowledging that they are an agent, to be able to then go on and do their own things, like it's a very Taoist approach to leadership and it's exciting hearing you say this because we've obviously been swimming in similar tributaries, not necessarily knowing we're in the same river system, but it's really cool sort of hearing you speak like this as well, because it just gives me so much hope that there are other people out there who similar sort of wavelength and are just trying to go out there every day and try and make the world a little bit better. You know, whether that's for people or the planet.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So yeah, no, trying a little, a little bit, and you guys are doing incredible job, you know, you've you've absolutely are phenomenal, and your new facility as well oh my gosh so exciting um you've, you know, created this hub and space for people to create and innovate and community and come together and feel, I guess, through that, motivated, energized and, you know, create a little like a little ecosystem exactly to your point, like before, about bringing people together.
Samuel Wines:I think it's something so meaningful when you can bring people together and then you don't even have to be the one facilitating you might facilitate bringing people in. And then, eventually, what emerges from this is something you could never have expected, because that's just how complex systems work yeah, bring a whole bunch of different agents together. You never know what's going to happen, and it's been so beautiful to just like witness what happens.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Kind of like gardening. It's kind of like oh, I had no idea that was going to happen, but what do you?
Samuel Wines:know you guys are collaborating, it's amazing.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I can't even imagine how many. I guess innovations or successions Successions is not the right word.
Samuel Wines:That's a TV show, but that's cool it is and it's a really good TV show.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:That's probably why it came out. Yes, amazing things that you've seen come out of this. You know the labs here. You know even what you were showing me, what people are creating. It's just so inspiring.
Samuel Wines:Thank you. Yeah, we're very lucky to be able to.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I'm trying to get better at accepting compliments. Yes, I'm trying to get better at accepting compliments. Yes, I know.
Samuel Wines:That's why I just say thank you, I get really I'm the same. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's been really fun and, to your point, a sufferfest making it happen. But we're really grateful for what's sort of emerged and we think that it's only like, with more and more people coming on board, it's only going to get bigger and better and more exciting, and that's exciting from our perspective at least anyway.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:I'm wary of time Is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners? I don't think I think we covered, just I guess, if there's anyone listening who wants to join the pilot you can go to our website and go to Be Involved.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:You can just sign up there. You can go through our Instagram page, our link link tree. You can get to it as well. Um, please follow us on instagram. We do a lot of uh, educational pieces, also just insights into you know what ovum's doing, how we're doing, how you use ovum and yeah, we just want as many women signed up as possible so you can get as much honest feedback, and I think that that is it. If you have any questions, you can email me as well at arielaheffernan-marks at ovumtechnologycom, happy to answer any questions that you may have. Oh, and our crowdfunding. We are running a crowdfunding campaign. It's our last week.
Samuel Wines:Oh cool.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:So we and you were there for the pitch so obviously have met our initial stretch goal of $20,000. We've nearly raised another, I think another $2,000, but we're trying to stretch to $25,000. So if anyone's interested in pledging an amount, it can be as small as $10. We have collaborated with a lot of women's empowerment brands who have offered discounts off their products. So if you donate X amount, you can get a reward for helping contribute to the development of Ovum. So that's another way in which we're trying to raise money without, I guess, giving away any equity, and also building community of people and supporters and, you know, getting everyone involved in the journey.
Samuel Wines:Love it. It makes total sense. We've been exploring something like that.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:eventually, maybe too it's difficult, but it's fun and it's a great learning process.
Samuel Wines:That it is Well.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Thanks so much, I appreciate you coming out some time, great conversation.
Samuel Wines:Really really great Good to hear.
Ariella Heffernan-Marks:Yeah.
Samuel Wines:Thank you for tuning in to another episode. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. It was a cracker. We really enjoyed sitting down with Ariella and look forward to watching this continue to grow and evolve over time. It's such an awesome concept. So if you are female bodied, please do consider exploring this and checking it out. We think it could be a really useful thing and we would love to see her succeed. Just a quick update from us we have officially launched our impact program. So if you would like anything up to three months of free lab space at our new facility in Notting Hill and you're doing impact oriented innovation that benefits either people or the planet and is bio-based or bio-inspired, please do reach out to us. We would love to be able to support you and help you bring your concept from ideation to actualization. Please don't hesitate to reach out at hello at colabscomau and we can give you any more information you might want. Yeah, cool all. See you later.
