Center Partners with Creative Destruction Lab, a New program at UW-Madison focused on health & wellness startups

Center Partners with Creative Destruction Lab, a New program at UW-Madison focused on health & wellness startups

June 16, 2021

The Center for Healthy Minds is a partner in the new Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) - Health & Wellness, a new program based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. CDL-Wisconsin Health & Wellness will deliver objectives-based program for massively scalable, seed-stage, health and wellness technology companies.

To address the growing need for scalable and effective health technologies, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), an early-stage program for science and tech-based startups, is launching CDL-Wisconsin Health & Wellness, its second program based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. CDL-Wisconsin Health & Wellness will work with massively scalable, seed-stage startups developing new products and services in medical technology, digital health, healthcare delivery, and mental and physical wellness.

Advances in science and technology offer powerful opportunities to improve the physical and mental wellness of people around the world. Positioning CDL-Wisconsin Health & Wellness at UW-Madison leverages the region’s strengths in healthcare, innovation, scientific research, and technology transfer. The program is a partnership between UW–Madison’s School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences, School of Medicine and Public Health, the Wisconsin School of Business, and faculty at the Center for Healthy Minds.

Portrait of Richard J. Davidson, Founder of Center for Healthy Minds

"Entrepreneurship is a critical ingredient to enable new innovations to reach the people who would most benefit,” said Richard Davidson, the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, director of the Center for Healthy Minds and president of the affiliated nonprofit Healthy Minds Innovations. “We’re seeing this with the pandemic and the massive acceleration to telehealth and other technologies. We’re enthusiastic about working with CDL to both share insights from our experts and to learn from the entrepreneurs and business mentors who are building the next generation of high-impact health and wellness tech companies.”

CDL-Wisconsin Health & Wellness will support commercially-driven ventures focused on innovations in medical imaging and devices, diagnostics, telehealth and remote monitoring, machine intelligence in healthcare, preventive and personalized healthcare, mobile medical applications, enterprise healthcare software, health insurance, and new business models in healthcare delivery, among others. While the new initiative is based at UW-Madison, CDL-Wisconsin Health & Wellness will recruit founders and start-ups nationally and internationally. Learn more and apply by visiting: www.creativedestructionlab.com/apply

Ventures selected for the program will participate in an annual nine-month program and receive mentorship from successful health and wellness entrepreneurs as well as industry leaders and scientists from UW–Madison and elsewhere. Participants will have the opportunity to raise capital from angel investors and venture capital firms, and work hand-in-hand with senior undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in technology entrepreneurship.

Adapted from the Creative Destruction Lab's Press Release. See the full news release and details of how to participate in the program on the Creative Destruction Lab website.

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