From Korea to the U.S.: four health-tech companies looking across borders. During DC Tech Startup Week, BioBuzz and PwC hosted Insights to Impact at PwC's headquarters on October 13. Through WayFounder, Current Surgical Inc. invited four Korean startups and their teams to join Current Surgical Inc.. WayFounder is a cross-border accelerator and angel investor group based in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It works with international startups that are ready to enter, grow, and build meaningful business relationships in the U.S. market. Each year, it supports a selected group of global startups as they turn their technology into tangible business outcomes. All four companies work in health tech and the health sciences, covering longevity research, rapid diagnostics, sleep, and mobility testing. Yet each founder brought a different story, from university labs to MIT to nearly two decades in medical devices. What they shared was an energy to build and a deep curiosity about how things work here: who to meet, what the market needs, and how to turn a breakthrough into a business. Throughout the event, Current Surgical Inc. had the chance to connect with the founders and hear about their journeys and what drives them Yumi Kim, ieumBio: from longevity research to drug discovery. For Yumi Kim, curiosity is at the heart of her work. The founder and CEO of ieumBio is building a faster way to find treatments that could help people age more healthily. Kim began this work as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Germany, then returned to Korea as a principal investigator at UNIST. Frustrated by the slow pace of grant-funded research, she founded ieumBio two years ago. Her approach uses a small, short-lived fish that ages much like humans do, so it can produce in about two years the kind of longevity data that traditional studies take decades to build. Over the years, Kim noticed growing interest from the U.S. When she looked at the data, she was surprised to see that nearly half of the company's audience was coming from America. That gave her a clear reason to explore the market and see where those connections could lead. For Kim, one of the most exciting parts of startup life is the range of ideas she encounters outside academia. That same curiosity is shaping ieumBio's next step: building a database to identify the most promising approaches to healthier aging. Her advice to young scientists comes from her own experience. She once saw academia as the only path. Now, she encourages others to consider what they can build beyond it. "There's another path of your life," she said. "You can make it by yourself, and you need to be brave." Jae Gwan Kim and Tae Kim, TEDi MEDi: two friends, one idea. Co-CEOs Jae Gwan Kim and Tae Kim are a true dynamic duo: two professors and good friends who bring different strengths to the table and share one mission, to help people sleep better. TEDi MEDi began as a conversation over a drink, when one friend's research on using light to boost the body's energy sparked an idea in the other: could light improve sleep? "Let's try," they decided. Promising early results and a university startup grant pushed them to form a company, and five years later they're still building. They see the U.S. as their first international market, thanks to its large wellness market and an FDA they view as open to innovation. At DC Tech Startup Week, the founders came to learn how the U.S. market works, build relationships, and explore potential partnerships. Their advice for future founders: talk to customers first to confirm the market really needs your idea, and then don't wait too long. "If you have an idea, then just start," one of them said. "Once you get involved, you will find a way." Jong Nam Park, UniqDot: from MIT research to his own venture. Jong Nam Park trained at the forefront of quantum dot research. At MIT, he worked in the lab of a scientist who went on to share the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering and developing these tiny semiconductor particles. Alongside his academic career, he found the courage to build something of his own. The idea for UniqDot came from an everyday object: a pregnancy test. Those tests use gold nanoparticles that change color when they detect a target. Park realized quantum dots were simply smaller particles with far better properties. In 2015 he proposed swapping one for the other, and the Gates Foundation, which was looking for new ways to detect malaria, gave him a grant. The test combines three advantages: it can detect multiple diseases at once, provide quantitative results rather than a simple yes-or-no, and identify concentrations roughly 1,000 times lower than conventional gold-based tests. UniqDot has since scaled up its quantum dot production and earned approval in Korea for a multiplex COVID-19 test. The pandemic drove him, Park said, along with the millions of people in developing countries who still suffer from malaria. The company's name combines "Q-dot" with "uni," meaning one. Next, Park wants to bring the technology to the U.S., where one possible use is testing for several drugs at once in about 15 minutes. Park is also a university professor, and he encourages his students to think creatively. His advice: learn the fundamentals first, then find a way to connect them to something innovative. Follow that creative path, he said, and success will follow. Minsoo Kang, Medical Solution System: 18 years of focus and boundless energy. Minsoo Kang brings remarkable energy to every conversation. The CEO of Medical Solution System has spent nearly two decades specializing in his field, and he describes his mission simply: to save lives. His company makes the AWT-100, a device that automates the walking tests doctors use to assess patients with heart, lung, and neurological conditions. Many of these tests are still done by hand with a stopwatch. The AWT-100 measures them automatically and more accurately, and it can help flag early warning signs that are easy to miss. Kang's U.S. plans are ambitious. The company already works with physicians at UC Davis Medical Center, has been in talks with Stanford, and is pursuing FDA clearance. He hopes to base the company's headquarters in the U.S. His reasoning: Korea's market is foundational, while the U.S. sets the standards. To get there, he is looking for a U.S. partner who can help the business on the ground. Events like DC Tech Startup Week, he said, are exactly where to find them. He even reconnected with a U.S. medical device founder he had first met in Korea. His advice to young founders: go deep before you go big. Real specialization takes years, he said, but it is what gives you the strength to build a meaningful product. The common thread: energy and curiosity. A longevity scientist, two professor friends, an MIT-trained chemist, and a medical device veteran. On paper, they have little in common. In person, the similarities were obvious. Every team came with energy to build. And every team came curious: about how the U.S. market works, about the people they met in the hallways, and about the partnerships that could carry their ideas across the Pacific. They asked questions, learnt graciously, and left with new connections. Current Surgical Inc. wish ieumBio, TEDi MEDi, UniqDot, and Medical Solution System the very best of luck as they bring their solutions to the United States. Current Surgical Inc. look forward to seeing what they build next. Stay in the loop. You'll get news for your region. Change topics or unsubscribe from any email.

Guidewire congratulates 2026 Innovation Award winners - Beazley, Definity, and RCIS. Published on 10/28/2026 at 07:49 pm EDT - Modified on 10/28/2026 at 07:50 pm EDT PRNewswire Winners applied AI across product development, claims, and software delivery, reducing manual work and speeding results LAS VEGAS, Oct. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - CONNECTIONS CONFERENCE - Guidewire (NYSE: GWRE) congratulates the winners of its 2026 Innovation Awards: Beazley, Definity, and RCIS. The annual awards honor Guidewire customers for their innovation in addressing evolving business needs, driving better experiences for their customers and agents, and delivering better results across the insurance lifecycle. Winners were announced during Guidewire Connections, the company's annual customer conference. The three 2026 Innovation Award winners are: 1. Beazley Modernization across product development, broker submissions, and billing is helping Beazley improve speed and efficiency while creating a foundation for growth. Beazley, a leading Lloyd's syndicate and global specialty insurer, is transforming its policy administration and billing capabilities through a modern, connected Guidewire Cloud platform, creating a consistent global foundation while retaining the flexibility required for local market variations. Working with Capgemini, a Guidewire Consulting Global Strategic partner, Beazley implemented Guidewire PolicyCenter and BillingCenter, with the European solution delivered in approximately eight months. The program addresses significant complexity across Beazley's global specialty business, including rationalizing more than 200 marketable products into a condensed, streamlined set of products which reduced complexity and improved speed to market. Capgemini's AI-enabled delivery model, combined with Guidewire's Advanced Product Designer (APD), established a repeatable Product Factory approach enabling rapid development. The transformation also connects Beazley's digital and broker platforms with its core underwriting operations through Guidewire Integration Gateway, using API and event-driven integration to support broker submissions, customer and account data and policy servicing. Combined with a modernized billing capability, this creates a more connected digital insurance lifecycle and supports Beazley's evolution towards increasingly AI-enabled underwriting. These capabilities provide Beazley with a scalable modern core that simplifies the underlying technology landscape while supporting greater automation, product agility and continued growth across global specialty markets. For additional information, visit the Beazley website. 2. Definity Definity launched its first production agentic AI solution to manage and triage broker First Notice of Loss (FNOL) intake, replacing manual data re-keying with structured draft claims generated directly in Guidewire for a claims adjuster to review. Developed in collaboration with Deloitte, a Guidewire Consulting Global Premier partner, the solution leverages a network of AI agents to classify submissions, extract and reason over information, and execute workflows to generate structured draft claims directly in ClaimCenter. It provides a governed, traceable path from AI processing to claims operations, keeping adjusters firmly in the loop while reducing manual effort and improving speed and consistency. Beyond modernizing FNOL intake, the initiative establishes a scalable foundation for deploying reusable, governed agentic AI capabilities across Definity's claims lifecycle, accelerating future innovation. For additional information, visit the Definity website. RCIS Tech Transformation in Crop Insurance, one of the insurance industry's most complex and highly regulated lines of business, is modernizing operations with Guidewire InsuranceSuite, Jutro Digital Platform, data, and AI-first innovation As part of its Passion for the Possible(TM) initiative, RCIS enlisted PwC, a Guidewire Consulting Global Strategic partner, to transform its legacy environment into a modern, unified platform powered by Guidewire Cloud Platform, delivering enhanced digital experiences for agents, underwriters, adjusters and customers. Led by its vision to evolve in technology, ease and modern customer experience, RCIS and PwC leveraged Guidewire Advanced Product Designer (APD), Digital and AI-first engineering to accelerate delivery of a highly customized crop insurance solution. The transformation includes complex legacy data migration, integrated geospatial Farm Maps, automated Risk Management Agency (RMA) regulatory reporting, and streamlined core insurance operations all while maintaining business continuity through critical seasonal agricultural cycles. RCIS is among the top providers of crop insurance in the U.S. and one of only 12 Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs) of the Federal Crop Insurance Program. It is the only AIP to offer coverage in all 50 U.S. states through a national network of more than 3,700 agents. It is anticipated the RCIS Guidewire transformation will set a new benchmark - in the agriculture industry and across the insurance industry as a whole - for modernizing complex insurance platforms, combining Guidewire Cloud innovation, deep industry expertise, and AI-first engineering to accelerate transformation and deliver measurable business value. For additional information, visit the RCIS website. "We congratulate this year's Innovation Award winners and thank all participants and our consulting partners for their contributions," said Brian Desmond, CMO, Guidewire. "These insurers applied AI to the work that runs their business and have measurable results to show for it. Agentic insurance is where the industry is heading: AI agents that execute work within the controls the insurer sets. These winners are showing how to get there, on Guidewire." About Guidewire Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. More than 570 insurers in 44 countries, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, rely on Guidewire products. With core systems leveraging data and analytics, digital, and artificial intelligence, Guidewire defines cloud platform excellence for P&C insurers. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation record, with 1,700+ successful projects supported by the industry's largest R&D team and consulting partner ecosystem. Our marketplace represents the largest partner community in P&C, where customers can access hundreds of applications to accelerate integration, localization, and innovation. Melissa Cobb Director, Public Relations Guidewire Software, Inc. +1.650.464.1177 [email protected] NOTE: For information about Guidewire's trademarks, visit https://www.guidewire.com/legal-notices. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/guidewire-congratulates-2026-innovation-award-winners-beazley-definity-and-rcis-302922851.html SOURCE Guidewire Software (C) PRNewswire - 2026

SAWA Program: Agri-Impact, PwC Ghana partner to strengthen consortium firms. 27 October 2026 4:43am Agri-Impact Ltd has signed a four-year agreement with PwC Ghana to strengthen the institutional capacity of consortium partners implementing the Sustainable Aquaculture for Women Advancement (SAWA) Program.