Business
In the penultimate episode of our first series of Zanda Talks, we interview telehealth innovator and host of “Digital Health Entrepreneurship Daily” (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtTCTa-oR4Zm2jrQ0ZZkelg ) Laurence Girard Laurence, Founder of Fruit Street (https://www.fruitstreet.com/) and CovidMD.com (https://covidmd.com/) , shares how his past evolved him into the conscious, motivated founder he is today, through playing soccer for the New York Red Bulls Academy in his teens and twenties and being an alumnus of the Kairos Society, a global network of social entrepreneurs focused on having a social impact. We gain an understanding of how he acquired the resilience needed for leading a startup, as well as finding employees who are inherently passionate about helping society. Laurence shares with us how he grabbed the opportunity when the pandemic began and pivoted to create CovidMD.com. He is heading up a team of technology experts, business leaders, and nationally recognized physicians who have joined forces to create this risk assessment, triage, and telemedicine platform that keeps people informed during the pandemic, and connects them with medical professionals in the safety of their homes. Laurence intends to mould the future of healthcare whilst the need is urgent and then continue the mainstream use of telemedicine in every household. Just like Fruit Street’s flagship product, diabetes prevention and weight loss program (https://www.fruitstreet.com/program/) which is delivered via live video conferencing with registered dietitians.