from the crossroads of America in the hooer state of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening in the Heartland today I'm Nate spangle head of community at Patrick Egg and I will be your host for today's conversation today we have a live recording from rally the largest global cross- sector Innovation conference that was held right here in Indianapolis on the show today is bronwin Bridges co-founder and CEO of pragma [Music] Clint bronwin Bridges is the co-founder and CEO of prag Clin a company focused on developing digital approaches to managing Parkinson's disease please enjoy this live episode
of get in from rally so my name is bronin Bridges I'm the CEO and co-founder of pricin we're a company based out of Canada I'm also a PhD pharmacology researcher in the Parkinson space I met my co-founder through my research and we started a company about two years ago oh my gosh okay so tell me about what your company does we provide digital assessments for Parkinson's Disease or other movement disorders we use specialty cameras to be be able to capture all of the motor assessment that you would do in a clinic and then supplement it with at home surveys to show comprehensive accessible data for
clinicians physio nurses and that and more so we can really Target Rural and remote areas that don't have neurologists and hopefully reduce the weight times oh my gosh what stage are you guys at are you still in the research stage have you gone to Market how are things going thus far yeah we have a MVP that's actually currently in trial right now in Dubai so we're collecting glal oh yeah so we're collecting and data from that trial currently it's been about 2 months we have 20 patients with Parkinson's who have been screened of all stages and we've gotten really positive feedback about 100% positive feedback
so that's been great okay so let's dive into not the science part but the action item right so I you're doing screenings for people that potentially might have parking sense so they walk into the doctor and your is this a hardware machine so it's people who have already been diagnosed um at the moment and we're doing follow-up assessments you're only seen once a year right now and just left in the dark and we call it educated guest work work because it's a subjective assessment so it's really about using their expertise about how they think you're doing and the progression but there's no real numbers attached
to that so we've made it so the assessment has numbers and you can really actually quantify how they're progressing better medication management and everything else and what made you want to pursue this I became really passionate about Parkinson's disease and it really was never about the money and just more so making a difference so I started a project but the government really liked what we were doing so the Canadian government kept funding us over and now there's a team of 10 of us working on it every day out of newf land and Labrador okay so for the us-based listeners here give me a is this
a East is this a West is as far east in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean as you can go oh so are you on the time zone that is the half an hour off yes okay all right north of Maine up in that area keep going all to the right as far as you can go okay and how did you hear about rally so we have done really good at pitch competitions over the last year and a half so we've leveraged about a half a million dollar just from random small pitch competitions and we just how many pitch competitions add up to half a
million dollars in random small pitch uh they vary about 10 to 12 we probably applied and won all of them yeah and it's been really great cuz that money then we take back to the government in Canada and they'll then match it and then some on Project I mean what an interesting what a creative fundraising vehicle for you way to bootstrap yeah yeah absolutely and are you going to mostly pitch competitions that are like grant-based like that type of mostly all grant-based we've done a few Equity ones which they're okay but we really want Partnerships so those ones have been a different uh thing but
we've done ones from Canada to the us all the way to Saudi Arabia recently and won a World Cup there so exciting that's amazing oh my gosh okay so tell me then you just are on the pitch competition Wiki like trying to find like all the places you can go and win yeah pretty well found out about rally and then yeah and advisers have always reached out whenever they saw something come up and everybody said hey I saw this new pitch competition that's offered at rally you might be interested in doing that and so and you you've already pitched right I did yeah all right
give me the the rock candid feedback how do you feel like it went I always don't have enough confidence in myself it goes better than I think it did it went pretty smooth cliar got stuck ones besides that I think it was great questions are answer great and the judges were pretty happy all right so you seem to be the expert when it comes to pitch competitions if you add one tip for someone out there that wants to maybe not win this pitch competition but when the next pitch next year's rally what would you give them I think just have confidence so I always joke
about how my power suits but it just allows me to go out on stage and uh be confident in what I'm talking about so the power suits I love it I'm here for that all right now let's talk about my favorite topic when we go into the podcast is Indiana you touch down what was first impression of Indiana the Southern Accents are amazing southern accent what are you it's so funny everybody is like why don't you have an accent you're from Canada I'm like what do you mean yeah a I don't say a or a boot or whatever it's the very stereotypical you said we
have Southern accents yes okay can we I got to dive in a little bit what do you mean like what weird I everything okay all right but it's like a nice Southern twang a little bit and people here are like kind it's very kind Place twang kind all right so when you think of Indiana first thing that comes to your mind what is Indiana known for o the Indie 500 is all that Canadians know about it really have you and you haven't been haven't I'll have to I'll have to go you're going to have to put that it is a bucket list it's a bucket
list Endeavor it is a spectacle okay that's good to know have you been out and about are you downtown I am downtown how long are you in town for only until tomorrow okay what's been your favorite place to visit in I went to the monument the big tall Monument I called it a roundabout somebody laughed at me but anyway it's the roundabout the big roundabout beautiful but honestly just like I said the people and the people at the conference have been so lovely and kind which I really enjoy so besides the pitch competition obviously we want to see you win that obviously but what has
been the other benefits of coming to a conference like rally yeah I think the Partnerships you say why Indie and and one of the questions I got asked during the pitch competition was if you were to win you have to register and come and actually have a presence here so live here and they were like why but you guys have really great Hospital systems and so people are willing to make introductions and I've already gotten a few really great introductions so you never know we could have a presence here if all goes well tomorrow yes let's go I love it we love seeing new people
come and check out Indianapolis all in all this is Rally first year conference what are your kind of big takeaways from coming to a conference like this you know what I actually think it was a really great sized conference I've been to conferences who are that's way too big and sector agnostic you really are going to have quite a bit of traffic but I think that the way it's been organized it's very clean laid out you know where everything is and it's really easy to make those introductions and go to the panels that you want to attend I love it and okay so listeners out
there that might be wanting to connect with you support you find you or just engage with your company where can they do that and and what type of person are you looking to connect with I'm looking to connect with anybody in the healthcare space and investors people who know neurologists or people who are just excited and want to make introductions that they can anybody can connect with me feel free to on LinkedIn it's probably the best way to connect with me BR and bridges but our website is pin.com amazing all right final this is floor is yours 30 seconds who do we want to talk
shout outs mom and Canada who we who we giving a shout out to shout out to Canada the best country um oh and cut yeah it's over it's fine no shout out to honestly the people who are just like I said willing to make connections here I've met some really great people and they've been super supportive and super helpful shout out to my mom obviously biggest supporter but like shout out to my co-founder gourd who every day goes into the office for 13 hours a day and plugs away with Parkinson's disease he deserves a massive shout out as it is amazing I love that thank
you so much one for coming to our city two for coming to rally and three for being on get in are you ready to transform your brand with award-winning video content that captures your vision and connects with your audience check out Alchemy the experts at building your brand using video from story-driven social media Snippets that leave a lasting impression to compelling fulllength documentaries they have got the expertise to take your brand to the next level Alchemy is actually our video partner here on get in they do amazing work all the videos across social across YouTube all that is done by Alchemy and they're an amazing
partner to work with reach out to me Nate at powderkeg or check out Alchemy film.com to get connected with Alden and his team they will take care of all your video needs this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for a guest or segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powder.com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powdercake executive Community Check out powder.com premium we'll
catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listen to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast in video marketing platform made specifically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at powderkeg and if you're a startup you should listen up because cassid for startups is definitely
for you they are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82% off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted at cd. us/ powderkeg
