Seeai’s story

Saile Villegas from Seeai on a video call

Saile Villegas, Director of Seeai, was inspired to start a business in healthcare after suffering a misdiagnosis at 18 years old. She was mistakenly told she had Scoliosis and that she would lose the ability to walk.

For an 18-year-old to hear that they’re not going to be able to walk anymore was shocking. So, for months we tried to find a specialist, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get access to one until we finally did and he told me that I’m actually fine and this is a common misdiagnosis from someone who is very inexperienced and that really stuck with me

Saile was raised in a developing country where access to specialist healthcare was limited. Saile knew she wanted to solve the problem and develop technology that would allow patients to easily access affordable healthcare from all corners of the world. And in doing so, she would help prevent her experiences from happening to others.

It was while studying Computer Science at the University of Leeds that Saile decided to start Seeai. Seeai initially joined the Nexus community as part of the Propel programme, a six-month digital health accelerator programme delivered by the Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network (AHSN), that targets SMEs with digital health innovations for the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Our technology is in the middle between industry and academia, we wanted to have strong academic collaborations and we knew that to achieve that, Nexus was the place to be

Joining the Nexus community has supported the growth and development of Seeai. It has enabled Saile to build collaborations with university members and NHS hospitals and has facilitated opportunities to showcase new technologies and made it easier to access grants. Saile also says that it was through the support and encouragement of community members that she applied for, and later won, the Innovate UK ‘Women in Innovation’ award.

This award [Women in Innovation] will help me take my technology further so that I can reach out to a wider audience of young female innovators and inspire them into entrepreneurship and STEM subjects. This wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Nexus

The Nexus community offers many benefits and in Saile’s case, it has supported with the roll out of technology into NHS Scotland, facilitating introductions with NHS hospitals, and helping to access further funding.

If you think you could benefit from being a part of our Nexus community, get in touch today.