Episode Zero: Exploring Change Through AI & Innovation
Join Shayan Mashatian as he introduces Mutual Connections, a podcast that uncovers the transformative impact of AI and technology across diverse fields. Through conversations with changemakers, Shayan explores innovation, collaboration, and the shared drive to solve real-world problems. Tune in to be inspired and gain fresh perspectives on the evolving tech landscape.
Akifa co-hosted this episode with Shayan.
Episode Zero
Exploring Change Through AI & Innovation
Listen to Mutual Connections on your favorite podcast platform
Transcript
Hi everyone. My name is Shayan Mashatian and welcome to the first episode of Mutual Connections. I'm here today with my co-host Akifah. How are you Akifah? Great. I'm really excited to be here and we've been talking about this podcast for a little while now and it's been brewing so I'm really excited to get started. For everyone who is listening to us.
We are both interested in AI and of course, how it's making a positive impact in our lives. But what is really interesting and drove us to start this podcast is how AI is adopted in different fields, in different technologies from healthcare and education. And we thought there is a lot to talk about in this area. Yeah. So, you know, we were hoping to get a lot of different guests involved with innovation.
Learing from entrepreneurs, researchers, all different kind of leaders in various industries that love innovation. So we hope to get some really cool, interesting guests on the show. How about we introduce ourselves a bit to our new audience and listeners? Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Akipa Kotak. I am a healthcare attorney. And I also have a master's in health administration from Cornell and a master's in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins. Amongst many projects that I'm involved with, right now my focus is women's health, specifically endometriosis. And I'm the co-founder of Her Health AI, which is a femtech company that diagnoses endometriosis noninvasively through a software. So that's what I've been working on recently.
When I looked at your LinkedIn and when I met you at health conference this year, I realized you have been going through different part of this industry. If I'm not mistaken, you start as a lawyer, then you shift or started focusing on health administration and eventually you did a master in biotechnology, right? It would be great if you walk us a bit through why those three, seems, totally different fields of studies, what happened? Well, one is I probably am one of those forever learners. I absolutely love learning. think knowledge is truly power and in making informed decisions is really important. So it all kind of played on my interests. In undergrad, did some, you know, I was a science major and I made an app that actually was put into the Apple Store for a while ended up going to law school, had a patent clerkship with a chemical disposition company in-house, got to see what intellectual property looks like, innovation on top of law, which I loved, you know, the fact that in the legal industry, you can touch on almost anything in life, right? And you can do a lot of social impact. So I almost wanted to blend science and law in some capacity to make a change positive change, right? And so then, you know, my background, my family, they're all in the medical field, and I myself went through a number of things. So I always had an interest in healthcare. And so how that came about was after law school, I went to get my master's in health administration from Cornell, understanding the businesses of hospitals, how do they operate?
What do you need in order to run a pharma company successfully? Things like that. then, you know, so law, business, and then science with the biotechnology. At one point, I wrote a legal article on brain-computer interface technology, BCI technology, and the legal implications. So I finally found a niche with healthcare, and I ended up having my own journey as a medical patient that kind of cascaded working with amazing professionals on her health AI, but it all came together. The law of business and innovation and all of it is for social change to help a lot of women and passion is definitely behind that for sure. Everyone has heard probably about Neuralink. The area that you mentioned is been going for a while. Probably that would be a very good topic for one of our episodes.
We learn more from you about what's happening in the field, what future holds and how they've dive into it. Absolutely. mean, I feel like, you know, we are going to talk about a lot of different industries, not just healthcare, although it's a prominent field we're both in. We're going to touch on design, architect, all types of different industries. But I wanted to know a little bit more about you, Cheyenne, let the viewers know who Cheyenne is. I know that you personally have done a lot of work for large companies, for startups in the industry, but you also were working with developing countries and doing projects. Could you tell me a little bit more about that and how you got involved with it? Absolutely. Yes. You know, when I was much younger, about 20 years ago or something, very accidentally, I got engaged by creating the first ISPs and internet nodes practically at the time that internet was going to born. And since then I was hooked and the impact of this technology was amazing. over the last two decades, I would say I have been going through these waves of the technology. First it was internet and web website and web applications. Then the mobile came in, then platforms and now AI.
And what was fascinating for me is on one side, how much they bring utility and productivity, all this technology for business, for society. Also, the impact they can have in terms of social innovation is great. How much we can provide access to information in rural areas or provide services that otherwise people wouldn't have access to those.
Yeah, it has took me through this journey. become a start-up guru. I have had a few start-ups, some of them successful, some of them didn't make it. That's kind of has been my journey, but in last almost six, seven years, I have been focused on personalized health and education. that's amazing. Wow.
I know that could be its own episode within itself because there's probably so much to talk about there. And you call yourself the Chief Glue Officer. So could you tell me a little bit about why do you, you know, go by that title? I guess the background I provided you have a good hint. Basically what I realized I'm really interested in attacking is weaker problems. And in order to really solve a complex problem, something that doesn't have even a very clear definition, not mentioning we don't know what the solution is, you need to find the brightest minds of our time, the smartest people. That's where magic happens. you can bring these people together and they work together, complement each other, collaborate with each other. Basically, that's the only way we can attack these problems we are facing. And I realize because of my background is I have a kind of an understanding from the science, technology, business, product. I can play a role to be a glue to bring all these smart people together. From there, I guess I have done my job. The rest happens somehow automatically. Yeah. And that's kind of the preface of, you know, why we also named it mutual connections because there were so many mutual connections between us and like, you know, as we touched on a bit before, it's all because people from different industries have a similar mindset of using innovation and technology as a tool to make a difference and to make a social impact. So there's a reason behind why we both have those mutual connections that, you know, definitely change makers and different industries. So it'll be a great time to get to know all these amazing experts and to bring the professional world with the public and allow the public to have access to these great minds in a very laid back scenario. And we can actually see what's happening in these industries. So I'm really excited for all the different guests we're going to have on the show. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe we should share a bit how we came up with the name Mutual Connections. If you remember,
we were discussing who will be invited to our show and who we want to talk to. Naturally, we went back to LinkedIn and we realized almost everyone that we think are a good candidate to invite to the show, we have a lot of mutual connections with them from 100, 200, even 300. I was surprised to see I have more than 300 mutual connections with someone and we have never met. I think these numbers, it's just not by accident. It's just a number. It maybe reflects about the problems we are trying to solve or somehow the solutions or the way we are thinking to go after these problems. And therefore we thought it is about mutual connections and those people we want to bring together. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, with that being said, we have our introduction and if any of the viewers know anybody or they themselves would like to be a guest and have some great ideas or innovation that they would like to let other people know about. We would love to get in touch with you and you know, hopefully you will be a part of our journey. Absolutely. And Steve, we have a condition that guests should be a mutual connection with me and Akif at the same time. So they need to send a connection request somehow. That way we'll know what you, you know, that you want to be a guest on the show.
Exactly. And we have a of maybe innovative ideas how we will be running this show and we try to keep it more interactive than just one way podcasts and bring these episodes to you and we will tell you about them I guess in next episodes. So until then, it's a wrap. Bye. care. Bye.
