Panel 1A
Gaming and Virtual Reality’s Contribution to Healthcare
Name: Michael Fergusson
Title: CEO & Co-Founder
Company: Ayogo Health
Michael is the founder of Ayogo, and the visionary behind Ayogo’s Lifeplan Platform. Lifeplan aims to bridge the gap between clinicians and patients, through structured education, behavioural science-based goal setting, and shared decision making (SDM).
Michael’s leadership has seen Ayogo develop from its early years as a software development service firm to twice being named one of the world’s 100 most innovative mhealth companies with its own product brought to market.
Outside of Ayogo, Michael serves as a Member of the Board for Innovate BC, and is a multi-gold medalist at the Western Canadian Martial Arts Championship.
Name: Kruti Kanojia
Title: CEO & Co-Founder
Company: Healthy Gamer
Entrepreneur with ten years of experience bridging technology and content to create engaging digital strategies for highly targeted audiences.
Name: Suzanne Mitchell
Title: Founder & Associate Professor, Family Medicine and Palliative Care
Company: See Yourself Health LLC
Physician entrepreneur with expertise in redesigning patient engagement with digital health and novel technology solutions.
Winner of Mass Next Gen Award for Women Entrepreneurs at Mass Life Sciences Center.
NIH-funded health services researcher with special interest in solutions for socially vulnerable populations living with serious illness and chronic disease.
Name: Maxim Antinori
Title: VR Software Engineer
Company: Vicarious Surgical
Maxim is currently Senior VR Developer at Vicarious Surgical, a surgical robotics company located in Waltham, Massachusetts. The Vicarious Surgical robot design intends to maximize visualization, precision, and control of instruments in robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery. Maxim’s mission is to use the latest technologies in 3D gaming and XR to realize the modern equivalent of the Fantastic Voyage, virtually transporting the surgeon into the patient’s body.
Before beginning his role at Vicarious Surgical, Maxim spent over twenty years helping educators, museums and other companies bring their projects to life with the latest digital technology. Primarily using the Unity 3D development platform, Maxim’s work spanned a wide variety of content, from mobile citizen science apps that helped users record nature sightings, to VR rock climbing simulations.
Maxim is excited to bring his experience crafting virtual experiences to Vicarious Surgical, helping build its first surgical robot, and realizing its potential to help surgeons and patients all over the world – minimizing the risk of complications, shortening healing time, and enabling safer, more precise surgery.