Gabriella Restrepo
Halvard RamstadInteresting fact: tech Lead at UK-based company Babylon Health with 2,000+ employees.
TL;DR
Introducing our co-founder and CEO at Livv Health, Sverre Sundsdal. Sverre has worked as an SWE at Google in New York, Director of Engineering at Schibsted, VP of Engineering at Telenor, and as a Technical Advisor to Oda.
What did you do before Livv?
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I grew up in Arendal which is a small city on the southern coast of Norway. Then I graduated from NTNU with a degree in Computer Science, and started my career at Google in New York, USA as a Software Engineer.
I worked on large-scale computations and massive data sets to target individuals with advertisements, but I didn’t empathise with the fact that Google could harvest people’s data and profit from it.
Because of that I quickly moved to Web Search which aligned better with how I thought we should use technically.
This experience later motivated me to focus on giving the end-user more power of their own data and privacy than large organisations.
You then transitioned to the healthcare industry?
Yes, after Google I moved to London to become the Head of AI Engineering at Babylon health, and my role was essentially to streamline the entire patient journey - from the initial patient interaction to automated follow-ups.
I quickly realised that the data knowledge in the healthcare sector is very poor and despite a strong focus on health - there was little understanding of big data management in healthcare.
Is data handling and privacy an issue in the healthcare industry?
While performing large data analyses and risk assessments for individuals to reduce healthcare costs, I realized that individuals were not informed about their own risk profiles. There was also inherent privacy risks of doing this in a large scale way. To be fair, we put a lot of effort into protect individuals privacy, but still it reminded me of Google's advertising model, which I found problematic. Babylon tried to address the economic aspects but did not succeed in putting the patient privacy and interests in the center. This data handling were part of my motivation to start Livv Health.
On that note - why did you decide to build Livv Health?
During my time in New York, I experienced severe pain in my hands and had to visit the doctor frequently for over a year. Each visit required me to fill out paperwork describing my problem, which was difficult due to the pain. This repetitive and frustrating process made me think, "Why can't I have a tool that helps me and my doctor?"
I eventually stopped going to the doctor. When I returned to Norway, I had to redo all these tests because they didn't trust the information from the United States, which was costly and inefficient for both the doctor and the patient.
Our long term vision for Livv Health is to be a personal health assistant who knows everything about you and helps you organise your health - this is an undeniable future in my opinion.
Even though our app just launched - what are some of the early functionalities of the app?
Personally, I use Livv to work with doctors to improve my lifestyle.
This includes regular blood tests, exercise, diet, and sharing wearable data from my watch, phone, and a continuous glucose monitor (CGM).
Although I don’t have diabetes, I use this data to maintain my energy levels throughout the day and for overall well-being.
We’re also building out some health dashboards and timeline graphs around the wearable data which I’m excited to put to the test.
Going forward - what’s your vision for the team and the culture you want to build at Livv?
I emphasise the importance of inspiring people who believe in the goal, giving them a lot of responsibility and freedom in their work. I advocate for continuous and relentless progress, which is achieved through small and frequent improvements rather than big, infrequent changes. I believe in progress at all costs and value cross-functional work internally.
Zooming out for a minute, what does your life look like outside of the office?
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Outside of work, I spend time with my wife, and children that are 2 and 5 years old.
The stress from work diminished significantly with the arrival of my children. This mental switch happened naturally because they became the most important thing in my life and I believe I’m a better person because of them.
If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?
If I could have dinner with one person, it would be Richard Feynman. Feynman was a visionary and an egalitarian, but most importantly someone that thought in terms of first principles and levelled the playing field with any person he interacted with.
Lastly, what do you envision the Norwegian healthcare system will look like in the future?
I envision a system that empowers patients and reduced administrative burden for the doctor. Wearables and apps will be seamlessly integrated through our app. I imagine we will build national healthcare AI tools right into the heart of the system so that we can improve our care processes based on real world data. We will have a system that is more humane for everyone and, with personalized tailored care for people to live better and longer.
Download the app in App Store or Google Play.