Women Disrupting Tech

Our healthcare system wasn't designed for the 21st century. It is a century-old model built in an era without AI, designed to rescue sick people instead of keeping people healthy in the first place.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, host Dirkjan Hupkes talks with Dr. Robin Blackstone about healthcare innovation, AI in medicine, and what real health system reform actually requires.

Whether you are following digital health trends or are a founder and investor building in the space, this conversation explores how a reimbursement system built after World War I still rewards treating sickness over prevention, and unpacks her Health 4.0 framework for closing that gap.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• The true cost: Why healthcare is the second line in the P&L of major US companies and why employees pay up to $6,000 per year for coverage.

• Health 4.0: How to redefine care around continuous, personalized, AI-enabled health instead of episodic disease treatment.

• Systemic incentives: What it would actually take for hospital CEOs, insurers, and health ministers to align incentives around wellness.

• Data and equity: Why social determinants of health and data equity matter for building a system for "the other ninety-nine percent."

• Technology's role: How AI connects people and systems to combat loneliness and drive decision-making.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

03:45 Introduction to Healthcare Innovation

06:35 The Journey of a Female Surgeon

09:33 Challenges in the U.S. Healthcare System

12:19 The Need for Systemic Change

15:27 Aligning Incentives in Healthcare

18:17 The Role of Technology in Health

21:18 Social Determinants of Health

24:15 The Impact of Environment on Health

27:05 AI’s Role in Personalized Medicine

30:09 Overcoming Barriers to Technology Adoption

33:01 Addressing Loneliness with Technology

35:41 The Role of AI in Human Connection

36:58 Understanding Health 4.0

41:16 Shifting from Crisis Management to Prevention

46:31 Incentive Changes in Healthcare

53:02 The Importance of Data in Healthcare

57:10 Monetizing Data and Equity in Healthcare

1:00:11 AI’s Role in Decision Making

1:02:16 Transforming Healthcare: A Personal Journey

1:05:46 Strategies for Healthcare Leaders

1:08:25 Reimagining Insurance and Payment Systems

1:10:44 Building a New Health System

1:11:50 The Human Element in Healthcare

1:16:18 Introducing Dr. AI: A New Frontier

1:21:23 Empowering Female Founders in Health Tech

1:27:17 How to Learn More and Connect with Dr. Blackstone

Links & Resources:

• Show notes and blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/07/30/episode-163/

• Women Disrupting Tech on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-163?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Connect with Dr. Robin Blackstone:

• Website: https://robinblackstone.com/

• Book: https://robinblackstone.com/the-book/

• Papers: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=11181028

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinblackstone/

• Podcast: https://robinblackstone.com/podcast/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RobinBlackstoneDoctorAI

• Substack: https://robinblackstone.substack.com/

Connect with host Dirkjan Hupkes:

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/⁠

FundingCoach.ai: ⁠https://fundingcoach.ai

Substack: ⁠https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/⁠

About Women Disrupting Tech:

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

One in three women will experience incontinence in her life, yet the options have stayed stuck at pads or surgery. Leonie van de Kamer is building the option in between.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Leonie van de Kamer, CEO and co-founder of Certain, about a patient-controlled device placed in the urethra for female stress urinary incontinence, positioned between disposable pads and invasive surgery. We trace how the valve technology started as a hormone-free contraceptive at Choice, why the team spun Certain out as a separate company, and what it takes to fund a preclinical medtech startup.

This episode is for female founders, women in tech, and health tech entrepreneurs, plus investors and women in leadership who want to see how a real medtech company gets built: the market validation, the regulatory strategy, and the funding decisions behind a women's health product.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why incontinence ranks as the second most impactful chronic disease on quality of life, and why one in three women is affected by anatomy, not injury
• How the same valve became two companies: adapting contraceptive technology to incontinence, and when to spin out rather than run a platform
• Why incontinence is a lower-risk investment case than contraception, in Leonie's own words
• How a lean medtech team "steers the orchestra" using external specialists instead of hiring every expert in-house
• Why the UK is a strategic first market after its ban on surgical meshes and tapes
• What early market validation with clinicians, patients, and insurers actually looks like before the product exists
• How Leonie uses AI to filter investors and cut the time lost to the wrong funding conversations

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

03:20 Introduction and background of Leonie van de Kamer

05:17 Leonie's journey from medicine and entrepreneurship

08:13 Inspiration behind Certain's incontinence device

13:22 Technical challenges and design considerations

18:26 Market strategy and spin-out process

23:15 Societal impact and addressing taboo in women's health

28:20 Regulatory classification and approval pathway

33:21 Funding strategies and investor relations

43:23 Building a lean team and quality management

53:20 Market opportunities in the UK and Europe

1:03:15 Future milestones and strategic partnerships

1:13:10 Closing thoughts and connecting with Leonie van de Kamer

Blog and show notes:

Show notes: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/07/23/episode-162/

Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-162?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Connect with Leonie van de Kamer and Certain:

Website: https://www.certain.care/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonie-van-de-kamer-2ba79a2b

Connect with Dirkjan Hupkes and Fundingcoach.ai

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

Website: https://fundingcoach.ai/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

Meditation and sleep apps are not fixing women’s health. Karen Berg explains why femtech needs real clinical answers instead.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Karen Berg, partner at Healthy Capital, a venture capital fund investing in digital health, about her path from law and investment banking into impact investing, and why she thinks femtech needs to move past wellness apps and into real diagnosis and treatment.

This episode is for founders building in health tech, women entrepreneurs, people in women in tech, and investors who want to know what makes a digital health startup investable.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why regulatory complexity can work as a moat, not a burden, for healthcare startups
• What Healthy Capital looks for before investing: a distinctive, hard-to-replicate solution
• Why femtech needs to move beyond wellness apps for meditation or sleep, and focus on serious medical issues
• How the Life Impact Framework measures healthcare startups across cost, quality and capacity
• Why AI in women’s health is limited by a lack of historical medical data on the female body
• Why closing the funding and health gap for women requires men and women working together

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:47 Karen Berg's background

03:44 Karen's transition from finance to healthcare

04:56 Impact of personal loss and career change

06:12 Attraction to complex, regulated markets

08:38 Experience with her brother’s illness and sabbatical

11:38 Why healthcare and impact matter to Karen

14:37 Investing in digital health and early-stage companies

16:09 The role of AI and data in women's health

21:48 Bias, representation, and funding disparities

29:42 Defining impact and measurement frameworks

38:58 Women's health as a serious, underserved market

47:17 Impact of societal awareness and education

52:29 The importance of diversity in investment teams

56:33 The debate: FemTech vs. HealthTech branding

1:02:02 AI funding coach for female founders

1:03:33 Closing remarks and where to connect

Connect with Karen Berg and Healthy Capital:

Karen Berg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-berg-9a97213

Healthy Capital website: https://www.healthy.capital/

Healthy Capital on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthydotcapital/

Connect with me:

Dirkjan Hupkes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Listen to Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building the future of health tech.

Only 2% of VC funding reaches female founders. Nithya Ruff argues the problem doesn’t start at the pitch table. It starts with how girls are raised and who gets to make investment decisions.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, host Dirkjan Hupkes talks with Nithya Ruff, former Head of Open Source at Amazon, chair of the Linux Foundation board, and LP in funds focused on South Asian women and diverse founders.

We cover why VC funding for female founders remains structurally stuck at 2%, what her father’s advice about financial independence built over time, and how AI and open source are changing who gets to build technology.

This episode is for female founders, women in tech, women entrepreneurs, and early-stage investors who want to understand why the funding gap persists and what structural change, not individual mindset shifts, can actually move it.

What you’ll learn in this episode

• Why the VC funding gap is an investor pipeline problem, not a founder pipeline problem, and what that distinction means for change
• How financial independence, instilled early, shapes confidence and career trajectory for women in tech
• Why women now lead the Python, Rust, Apache, and Linux foundations, while the coding side of open source remains male-dominated
• What AI is doing to the “priesthood of software development” and why it matters for non-technical founders
• Why women enter entrepreneurship later than men, and what corporate culture has to do with it
• What early-stage founders consistently underestimate beyond the go-to-market strategy
• Why building a peer support community is as important as building the product itself

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:43 Nithya’s Journey to the US

11:17 The Influence of Family on Confidence

18:06 Navigating Cultural Differences in Parenting

27:24 Challenging Gender Norms in Family Dynamics

27:40 The Funding Gap for Female Founders

33:00 The Need for More Female Investors

36:31 Empowering Women in Investment

41:53 The Startup Path for Women

47:04 Integrating Work and Life in Startups

50:16 The Open Source Model and Its Impact

56:35 AI: A Tool for Empowerment

1:01:57 Building Community and Support Systems

1:06:38 Underestimating the Go-to-Market Strategy

1:11:58 Governance and Flexibility in Startups

1:18:19 The Balance of AI and Human Connection

Show notes and Substack

Show notes: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/07/09/episode-160/

Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-160?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Connect with Nithya Ruff

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nithyaruff

Substack: https://substack.com/@nithyaruff779075

Connect with Dirkjan Hupkes

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

More than 90 FemTech companies in the Netherlands are working to close the gender health gap. Most didn’t know the others existed.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Maaike Steinebach and Sophie van Dijk, co-founders of FemTech NL, the organization connecting FemTech companies across the Netherlands. We talk about why the ecosystem has been so fragmented, and what FinTech has already learned about moving from competition to collaboration.

This episode is for FemTech founders raising their first round, investors building a thesis in women’s health, and women in tech curious about how a fragmented industry starts moving together.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why more than 90 FemTech companies in the Netherlands have been building in isolation from each other
• What FemTech NL’s five pillars, communication, data, collaboration, research, and funding, are meant to fix
• Why the most successful founders lead with the commercial opportunity, not the social case
• What FinTech’s shift from competition to collaboration can teach FemTech about adoption
• Why the global opportunity here is valued at $1 trillion a year, according to a McKinsey study
• Why the goal isn’t “the future is female,” but equal healthcare for men and women
• Why closing the gender health gap would take more than a century, at the current pace, and what could speed that up

Connect with Maaike Steinebach and Sophie van Dijk

Maaike Steinebach on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maaike-steinebach-8a3a304/

Sophie van Dijk on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophie-vandijk/

FemTech NL website: femtechnl.com

Show notesBlog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/07/02/episode-159/

Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-159?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

About Women Disrupting Tech
Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors in HealthTech, FinTech, ClimateTech, and AI rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to get it in your feed.

Most fitness apps are built to track everything. That's exactly why people stop using them.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Zoe Pineau, co-founder of Fitly AI, about how she lost 150 pounds through macro tracking, spent six years building a traditional fitness app that didn’t break through, and then rebuilt from scratch in one month using AI.

We explore why friction kills fitness habits before they start, and how a chat-based agent changes that equation.

This episode is for female founders, women in tech, and health tech entrepreneurs who want to understand how AI is reshaping user experience, and for anyone building in a saturated market where being better is no longer enough.

What you’ll learn in this episode

• Why macro tracking is mathematically reliable but practically abandoned by most people
• How Fitly AI lets users log an entire workout and meal in a single sentence, removing the admin burden that kills consistency
• Why “better” is not a differentiator in a saturated market, and what to build instead
• How Zoe used her own transformation as proof of concept when pitching investors
• Why apps are disappearing and what the age of agents means for founders building in this space
• How a 30-day momentum report keeps founders motivated and investors informed

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:50 Introduction to Fitly AI and Personal Journey

05:45 Transformative Weight Loss Experience

08:47 Mindset Shift and Habit Formation

11:32 Understanding Weight Loss as a Mathematical Process

14:11 The Importance of Macro Tracking

16:55 Innovating Fitness Apps with AI

19:47 Simplifying User Experience in Fitness Tracking

22:53 Building Fitly AI: Lessons Learned

25:31 The Impact of AI on App Development

28:25 Leveraging AI for Business Insights

30:33 The Role of Prior Experience in AI Utilization

32:30 Data Privacy and Security in AI Applications

35:02 Collaborative Development: A Team Approach to App Building

37:17 Navigating the Fundraising Landscape

39:22 Addressing Competition: Lifestyle Changes vs. Quick Fixes

42:18 Motivation and Consistency in Fitness Tracking

45:13 The Future of Fitness Apps: Integrating AI Agents

47:55 Building a Funding Coach AI for Female Founders

Connect with Zoe Pineau and Fitly AI

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-pineau-850588105/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoepineau

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thezoepineau

Website: https://www.fitly.chat

Show notes of the episode

Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/06/25/episode-158/

Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-158?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

About Women Disrupting Tech
Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors in HealthTech, FinTech, ClimateTech, and AI rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to get it in your feed.

Most founders build their financial position in the wrong order. By the time the exit arrives, the decisions that mattered most have already been made under pressure.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Ana Herrero-Wallace, financial independence coach, former US-licensed equities trader, and founder of AdaInvest, about why financial independence is not an exit outcome but a tool you build while building your company. Ana is also the author of ‘Still Thinking? Act., a smarter money guide for women.'

We explore how money mindset shapes the way founders price, fundraise, and negotiate, and what it takes to move from overthinking to action.

If you're a female founder, entrepreneur, or woman in tech who wants to understand how financial agency changes the way you build, fundraise, and choose investors, this episode is for you.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why the fundraising ask most founders make is shaped by what they think investors will accept, not what they actually need
• How to build a personal financial floor in parallel with your company, and why liquidity matters more than home equity for founders
• What the Dutch pension gap reveals about a system that rewards part-time work without accounting for its long-term cost
• Why moving from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset is less about attitude and more about having a clear financial plan
• How unpaid labor has real financial value, and why women can and should negotiate for it to be recognized
• What "playing to win" looks like in practice, and why most women are socialized into a defensive financial posture before they ever start a company
• Why the goal of fundraising is agency, not validation, and how that difference changes the way you negotiate

Connect with Ana Herrero-Wallace and AdaInvest:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-herrero-wallace/

AdaInvest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/adainvestco/

Website: https://adainvest.co/

Still Thinking? Act.: https://mybook.to/rypMMkA

About Women Disrupting Tech
Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors in HealthTech, FinTech, ClimateTech, and AI rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to get it in your feed.

Most brands are optimizing for search engines that fewer people are using. Rachel Gilley, CEO of Clarity Global, is tracking what happens when your customers stop Googling and start asking AI instead.

In this episode, Rachel breaks down Generative Engine Optimization: why it matters, what it costs brands that ignore it, and how a consistent message across every touchpoint is now a technical requirement, not a communications nice-to-have.

She also makes a sharp distinction between mentoring women and sponsoring them, and why only one of those actually changes who gets funded.

What you’ll learn:

• Why LLMs treat inconsistent brand messaging as noise — and simply ignore it
• What Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is and why it matters more than traditional search rankings
• How a deliberate GEO strategy drove a 300% increase in AI citations for Monday.com
• Why the human layer — strategy, nuance, reading a room — is the one thing AI cannot replace
• The difference between mentoring women and actually sponsoring them
• Why fewer female unicorns is a capital routing problem, not a capability problem

📋 Full episode notes + Rachel’s bio: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/06/11/episode-156/

Connect with Rachel Gilley
🌐 clarity.global

🔗 linkedin.com/in/rachelgilley

Surfacd — track your brand in AI search:

🌐 surfacd.com

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

FemTech represents a trillion-dollar opportunity. So why do all-female teams receive just 2% of early-stage venture capital?

Beata Wandachowicz-Krason has spent years researching what is holding FemTech back — the funding gaps, the cultural taboos, and the structural misalignment between how healthcare systems are built and what women’s health actually requires.

In this episode, she breaks down why the relatability gap between female founders and male investors is one of the biggest blockers in the sector, and what founders can do about it right now.

You’ll hear why pitching FemTech as a social cause is the wrong move, how to pivot from risk-based investor questions back to growth, and why male allyship is not optional if the sector is going to scale.

What we cover:

• The funding paradox: 85% female-led ventures, 2% of VC funding
• Why 90% male VC decision-making creates a structural relatability problem
• Cultural taboos around menopause, miscarriage, and chronic pain — and how they suppress both patient voices and founder credibility
• How healthcare systems optimized for acute care create a prevention gap that FemTech is trying to fill
• Why AI tools are censoring the very medical terms that took decades to legitimize
• How to build a data-driven, economically aggressive pitch that moves FemTech out of the wellness niche
• The pivot technique: answering risk-based questions without losing the growth narrative
• Why male allyship — done right — accelerates the sector rather than co-opting it
• Data privacy in women’s health: why the taboo is a bigger barrier than the technology
• Practical tools for combating gender bias in the funding process

About Beata Wandachowicz-Krason
Beata is an executive at Organon and a researcher focused on the systemic barriers holding FemTech back. She works at the intersection of women’s health, venture capital, and ecosystem building.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Funding Coach: ⁠fundingcoach.ai⁠
• Pieter van Keep and early menopause research: ⁠https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9089556/⁠

Related episodes:

• Sabrina Nowicki
• Carmen van Vilsteren
• Femke Delissen
• Ida Tin
• Sara Okhuijsen

Connect with Beata: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/beata-wandachowicz-krason/⁠

Find the show notes: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/06/04/episode-155/

Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for weekly conversations with the women reshaping technology and healthcare.

The solar panels going up on rooftops everywhere are solving one problem, and quietly creating another.

This episode is for female founders, women in tech, and anyone building at the intersection of sustainability and deep technology.

Host Dirkjan talks with Andjela Bozinac, co-founder and CEO of Renovo Recycling. Andjela is building a modular, chemical-free system that uses Physical AI and robotics to deconstruct end-of-life solar panels and recover high-value materials like aluminum, silicon, and glass.

Andjela's path combines mechanical engineering, intellectual property thinking, and a black belt in Taekwondo. She applies the same discipline she learned on the mat to building deep tech: showing up anyway, treating failure as feedback, and designing not just for what works in the lab, but for what gets adopted in the real world.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why solar energy is scaling fast while quietly creating a waste problem we don't know how to handle yet
• How Renovo's "vending machine in reverse" approach recovers materials without crushing or chemicals
• Why getting technology to work is only 30% of the journey — and what the other 70% actually requires
• How to sell urgency in deep tech without selling the future
• Why regulation in climate tech is a market, not a barrier
• Why now is the moment for women to enter AI and robotics, while the rules are still being written

Andjela also shares hard-won lessons from her first startup, TreeBlock, and how shifting from building the solution to building the right path to adoption changed everything about how she runs Renovo.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

03:00 Andjela’s Founder Journey

06:02 Engineering Background and Its Impact on Entrepreneurship

08:40 Lessons from Previous Ventures: TreeBlock Experience

11:38 The Problem of Solar Panel Waste and Recycling Challenges

14:38 Identifying the Core Issues in Solar Panel Recycling

17:34 Innovative Solutions for Solar Panel Deconstruction

20:20 Modular Systems and Their Advantages in Recycling

21:19 Targeting Solar Installers: A Strategic Approach

23:51 Current Status and Future Plans for Renovo Recycling

24:02 The Role of AI in Physical Recycling

27:18 Preparing for the Solar Waste Surge

30:23 Fundraising in Deeptech

34:50 Convincing Stakeholders of Urgency

37:38 Regulatory Support and Compliance

39:04 Expanding Beyond Solar Panels

40:58 Practical Insights for Founders

45:30 Empowering Women in Tech

49:37 Building a Supportive Funding Ecosystem

Connect with Andjela Bozinac and Renovo Recycling

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bozinac-andjela24/

Website: https://www.renovo-recycling.it/

Renovo on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@renovosrl

Check out the show notes on https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/05/28/episode-154/

Women Disrupting Tech on Substack

https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-154?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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