You have an impressive resume :(founder of Circularia, Ruby Tribe, Saker Sportscars, Cluj Cowork, Extreme Projects, CTO of SkinVision, WeStyle and advisor of Saker Sportscars, Club Judge, Betribes), how do you find time to successfully manage all of those?
My resume is actually not complete, looking at your question, but this is also not something of interest to me. Doing the things in life that I really like and believe in makes it more manageable. Over the years, I learned that, if you don't really believe in something, it gets very hard to do that particular thing. This is most likely a formula for failure. Besides that, it is just a matter of working hard and going forward.
One of the more recent ventures is Cluj Makers and I encourage everyone to check this place out. Cluj Makers is a place where anyone should be able to make anything, at any time, out of (almost) any material. Our main goal is to allow members from any domain to work with almost any material and share their knowledge and skills with the entire community, to cultivate the engineering-oriented approach, a spirit of creativity and DIY (do it yourself), as well as to revive the more traditional forms of crafting.
2. How come you moved to Cluj?
After I sold the sports car venture I was in between 'things' and I was asked by a friend to help out with a project in Romania. This turned out to be a great experience and it intrigued me. In time, we decided to build a development team for a startup in the Netherlands. Naturally, I thought of Romania and, after investigating several cities, I decided that Cluj was the best place to be. I liked being here ever since.
3. Tell us a bit about "SkinVision" App?
SkinVision helps people, through the use of a smartphone app, to find suspicious moles on their skin in a timely manner. SkinVision offers a unique and trusted solution that is build on a large database of 1M+ pictures of suspicious moles that our users have build up. Globally, we have exceeded 500k customers that have downloaded the App.
Currently we are the only scientifically proven App for skin cancer and the first and only CE marked skin cancer App, globally.
We are very proud to offer this unique and trusted solution with the support of leading skin cancer clinics such as LMU, Mayo Clinic that are also on our scientific board.
We are addressing a real and urgent need. Instances of skin cancer are growing, and the number of consumers with a risk profile, who are actively monitored by a health professional, is small. There are simply not enough medical specialists (specialized GPs, dermatologists) to diagnose, treat and monitor the risk for skin cancer among the population.
How does it work?
The application helps you make high-quality pictures of a skin lesion or a mole. The picture can then be analyzed with the online assessment that provides a risk rating of the picture (red, yellow or green). With the risk rating, you can identify the moles that you want to track for changes, in your personal gallery. If you feel uncomfortable during the process, you can always share the picture or your gallery with your dermatologist or doctor.
We do not diagnose melanoma or have the ambition of replacing the visit to the doctor at all. We just complement the regular visits to the doctor and want to bring people to see a doctor at the right time and prepared with a gallery of pictures.
Smartphones are so universally accessible, that they can empower patients to take greater responsibility for their health.
4. Does this App solution replace a dermatologist?
SkinVision does not replace the visit to a dermatologist and/or GPs. It rather complements them. The newly introduced SkinVision Pro system facilitates the professionals to get in contact with their patients and monitor them over time (Teledermatology and Online Monitoring).
5. How accurate is "SkinVision" App and do you have cases where people successfully detected a dangerous mole with the help of "SkinVision" App?
The short answer is that we offer the average eye of a dermatologist on the smartphone to find potential suspicious moles. A dermatologist scores between 70 - 90% accuracy.
The accuracy of the online assessment has been extensively tested in one of the largest dermatology clinics in Europe, LMU in Munich. Based on this study, we can do the accuracy statements.
On a daily basis we detect a few hundred potentially dangerous moles. Our advice is to always visit a doctor, as soon as you can, when this happens. One of the rewarding parts of being a health startup is that we frequently get messages from people that successfully removed a melanoma that was detected with SkinVision.
A recent new item on the New Zealand Television covered a lady stating SkinVision saved her live. See this link: https://vimeo.com/161299683
by Vlad But
by Delia Mircea
