Meet the Innovator: Conor McGinn

Current job role: Co-Founder & CEO

Name of innovation: Akara AI

Tell us about your innovation in a sentence.

Akara develops cutting-edge AI technologies, including robots and smart room sensors, to help hospitals free up time in operating rooms so they can perform more procedures.

What was the ‘lightbulb’ moment?

We realised that operating rooms and other critical parts of the hospital are regularly out of action for hours each day and that much of this downtime could be reclaimed through efficiency improvements that are possible with automation.

What three pieces of advice would you give budding innovators?

1. Make it easy to use: Spend time understanding how your innovation would impact clinical workflow when introduced.

2. Demonstrate a compelling ROI: Identify commercial KPIs early and collect data, where possible, to support the business case for the technology.

3. Get on a procurement framework immediately: Even if a hospital loves your technology, it’s very hard for them to purchase it if you aren’t an approved vendor.

What’s been your toughest obstacle?

- Learning how to get support from the different stakeholders inside a hospital.

- Getting someone to champion our technology is just the beginning.

- We’ve needed to learn how to navigate procurement, infection control, hospital IT, estates and facilities, and labour unions, among others.

What’s been your innovator journey highlight?

Getting to see our technology in real use in hospitals and delivering impact to the lives of staff and patients.

What is the best part of your job now?

Getting to work with an amazingly talented group of people who share the same vision and ambition as I have for transforming healthcare.

If you were in charge of the NHS and care system, what’s the one thing you’d do to speed up health innovation?

Introduce more direct incentives (i.e. access to funding, creation of new pathways for career advancement, time carve-outs)  for both clinical and operational staff to work with startups and support health innovation.

A typical day for you would include…

I usually start my day at around 6 am. The first thing I do is review my tasks for the day and identify the 2–3 most important tasks. At 8 am., I attend a standup meeting with the rest of the team to touch base and share our respective plans for the day. I’m usually in back-to-back meetings for most of the day, speaking with partners, advisors, prospective customers, and investors.

When I’m not in meetings, I’m usually responding to emails or checking in on the hospitals where our technology is deployed, which is now in three countries (Ireland, the UK, and the US). A few days each week, I carve out 2-3 hours to complete dedicated tasks, like preparing materials for upcoming pitches, presentations, and strategic initiatives.

At the end of the day, before I leave the office, I review my task list, crossing off things I’ve achieved and adding any new tasks that may have arisen.

You can find Akara AI on its website, Twitter, and LinkedIn.