04.30.24-Startup-Ecosystem-Conference-Startups-Introduction

TRICIA DINKEL: Hello, and good morning, almost afternoon. It's great to see you all. As Catarina said, I'm Tricia Dinkel. I'm with the MIT Startup Exchange. And it's a real pleasure to celebrate innovation today with all of you.

Even more exciting is right now we're about to go into the Startup Lightning Talks, which is a series that obviously is going to happen today because of the focus of today's conference on the innovation ecosystem and startups in general. But it also is a segment that we highlight in most, if not all, of the ILP conferences that are hosted throughout the year. So it's really a time for startups to come to present, not only on stage but to exhibit during the networking portions, which many of you have already experienced.

So we encourage you-- after these presentations, we have two sessions today, which is a little bit unique to, again, today's conference. But we do encourage you to follow up if you have more questions. Hopefully, you do. There's always much information to be discussed in those networking portions, both throughout the networking lunch as well as the afternoon networking session, which will follow immediately after the second Startup Lightning Talk session.

So with that being said, we're about to hear from seven presenting startups and just making sure everyone is ready for our first presentation. Excellent. Seven presenting startups will be presenting in this first session today. And again, it is a true honor to have each one of these companies speak before you and to tell you a little bit about their company. And more is certainly to come.

And you can always ask them. Or if you have any questions, you're not able to find them in any of the networking portions, please come see any one of the Startup Exchange team. I know you heard from my colleague Catarina. You'll be hearing from my other colleague, Irina, later this afternoon. And Ariadna is also busy, not even in the background, in the forefront, helping to make sure that today is successful and well informed.

So with that being said, it is my pleasure to kick off today's Lightning Talks with our first presentation, Bloomer Tech. And we'll be hearing from founder and CEO Alicia Chong Rodriguez. Bloomer Tech advances women's cardiovascular research and care through personalized diagnostics. Welcoming to the stage, Alicia.