The Princesa de Girona Foundation acknowledged Valentina Agudelo (Colombia, 28 years outdated) already Gabriela Asturias (Guatemala, 29 years outdated) with the International Prize within the Creaempresa and Research classes. They are two awards that distinguish the trajectory of younger folks as much as 35 years of Latin American nations who’ve highlighted for his or her work in scientific analysis and enterprise.
The jury unanimously determined to embellish the 2 Latin American ladies as a result of their tasks handle to “combine science, public health and technology with an applied, inclusive and focused on social impact approach.”
In an occasion held on the Móstoles Forest Theater, with the presence of King Felipe VI and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the 2 younger ladies acquired their decorations. “I would only like to thank the team that works with me and with which we dedicate our lives to democratize access to health,” Agudelo mentioned shortly upon receiving the prize. Asturias, however, confused feeling “honest” to be representing his nation in a contest that valued dozens of different tasks earlier than selecting his because the winner.
Asturias is scientific, medical and entrepreneur. In 2015, the younger girl – talked in neuroscience on the University of Duke and a health care provider from Stanford University, each within the United States – opened the doorways of the Develop Guatemala Foundation for Education and Health (Fundegua) from which he channels his “research and vocation of service” in the direction of his nation. One of its fundamental developments has been a soul, a chatbot Based on synthetic intelligence to which a million folks in Guatemala resorted throughout the pandemic to hunt details about COVID and that continues to provide medical schooling and recommendation to susceptible communities.
In dialogue with El País, Asturias mentioned that this award will in all probability change the course of his profession. “One of the most important things in this recognition is that it legitimizes our project and that can open new doors so that more people can reach it,” he mentioned. He added: “Artificial intelligence, such as the one we use in Alma, will never change personal treatment with a doctor or a psychologist, but is helping many people give for the first time they need to ask for some kind of help.”
The younger girl’s curriculum is lengthy and loaded with laurels. She was appointed, for instance, as one of many 100 strongest ladies in Central America by the journal Forbes. It was additionally highlighted by MIT and Bloomberg. Currently, discover easy methods to apply AI to deal with psychological well being issues amongst migrant communities.
Agudelo, in the meantime, is a businesswoman with enterprise administration coaching, oriented to well being innovation. She is the founder and director of Salva Health, an rising firm that creates technological options to enhance entry to medical analysis, particularly in excessive incidence and value illnesses. His first product, which noticed the sunshine in 2018, is Julieta, a transportable system that, because of AI, performs breast most cancers with out radiation or superior infrastructure to detect probably broken breast tissues.
“Julieta is something like my first child,” he defined after profitable the prize. “It is the one that has taught me the most, but now I dream of a complete ecosystem of solutions so that people who fail to access the health system have the possibility of detecting their diseases in time.” The younger girl and her staff are engaged on growing units much like Julieta, however to alert the chance of osteoporosis, fatty liver, prostate most cancers or diabetes. “Diseases with a very high incidence and that detecting them in time can save your life,” he mentioned.
Thousands of ladies in Colombia used Julieta to entry an early analysis and now the younger girl desires to broaden it internationally with European CE certification. His imaginative and prescient, he defined, is obvious: “To guarantee that all women, regardless of where they live, have access to affordable and worthy medical diagnoses”.
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