OHT Women's Health: Intersectionality in FemTech Solutions

FemTech is flying - but too often it’s still built for a single “default” user: cis, non-disabled, English-speaking, always-online. Real lives aren’t that tidy. In the UK, Black women face nearly 3× the risk of maternal death compared with white women, and rates double in the most deprived areas. Meanwhile, almost 1 in 20 adults still have no home internet, rising to 13% of over-65s - and around 21 million working-age people can’t complete all the essential digital tasks needed at work. Add language barriers (about 1.5% can’t speak English well; 0.3% not at all) and the exclusion of pregnant and breastfeeding women from UK trials (just 1.1% and 0.6% of trials include them), and it’s clear: designing for “everyone” usually means designing for someone.

So we’re asking a bigger, better question: what would it take for FemTech solutions to be truly inclusive in practice? This session brings founders, operators and clinicians who design with equity in mind. We’ll dig into what changes outcomes - things like representative datasets and trials, language support in records and apps, offline-first choices, accessibility by default, and distribution that reaches the people most affected.

Come to learn, share, or simply listen in - there’s a seat with your name on it!

Introducing our Panel:

Malin Frithiofsson - CEO, Daya Ventures

Malin Frithiofsson is the CEO & Co-Founder of Daya Ventures, a femtech venture studio building and accelerating women’s health startups across Europe and East Africa. She has led the creation & acceleration of 18+ ventures through Daya’s studio model and works closely with founders, clinicians, and researchers to close the gender health gap. Malin is also an active angel investor, backing early-stage women’s health and impact-driven startups across the Nordics and beyond.

Tesiah Coleman - Co-founder & CCO, Kyndred. Founder & CEO, Togather.

Tesiah Coleman is a double board-certified Nurse Practitioner and the Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Officer of Kyndred, where she leads the development of culturally responsive virtual care built for and by Black women. With over a decade of experience spanning reproductive care, digital health, and health equity innovation, she brings a practitioner’s insight to driving scalable, justice-centered solutions.

Elsa Zekeng Founder & CEO, SökerData

Elsa is the founder of SökerData, a start-up increasing equity in clinical trials for women and black and ethnic minority groups by engaging with Pharmaceutical and biotech companies to support them in diversifying their drug development process. She has also worked with renowned organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the European Commission as a consultant and received several public recognitions- among them being named one of the “Top 50 Most Inspiring, prominent and influential black voices in UK Tech”, as well as an award from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the II for exceptional work during the biggest Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Africa.

Agenda

XX:00 - XX:10 Welcomes and Introductions from the OHT Women's Health Team - Sabrina Davis, Bimpe Lawal, Donna Williamson

XX:10 - XX:45 Panel discussions: Elsa Zekeng, Tesiah Coleman, Malin Frithiofsson

XX:45 - XX:59 Audience Q&A

This project is supported by UCL through a Knowledge Exchange and Innovation grant in Women’s Health Tech.