I would like to thank you for finding a moment for us. Please, tell who you are, what you do, and what StethoMe is.

My name is Wojciech Radomski, I have been the president and co-founder of StethoMe for seven years. Previously, for 10 years, my partners and I ran a software house. Then we sold it and started our adventure with StethoMe. Honorata and Jędrzej - PhDs from the Adam Mickiewicz University joined us in this adventure. They came to us with the idea of the electronic stethoscope. StethoMe is an electronic stethoscope for home use with artificial intelligence algorithms to detect abnormal sounds in the respiratory system. While more and more devices such as electronic stethoscopes appear on the market, we are still the only company in the world that has medical certification for artificial intelligence algorithms that can analyze these sounds. There is a big difference between what is available on the market and StethoMe.

Please tell us something more about the very beginnings. Where did the idea for this product come from, and how long did it take to develop? What was the biggest challenge you faced during this whole process?

Where did the idea come from? After 10 years of running an IT company, one day I came to the office and suddenly found that I no longer wanted to do these boring IT systems for another company where each of them is very similar to the other. And it would be nice to use these resources, vast knowledge, and experience to do something that will change something in the world. I returned to the subject of my studies, "Computer Science in Medicine". We had a lovely teacher there. The final task was to find a doctor with a problem and solve it using technology. I remember today the moment of passing this course when all the teams presented their projects in the laboratory room. I was captivated by the enormity of these interesting solutions, which at that time were such amazing innovations and had great potential to support medicine. The reality was that after passing, they were hidden in a drawer and nothing happened to them afterward. It stuck in my mind that there is enormous potential for combining computer science with medicine. This is how the idea came to my mind: maybe this is the direction that will help us change something in the world. I wrote a short post on Facebook that we are an IT company, we have experience, we have capital, and connections and we are looking for a doctor who has a problem that we will be able to solve using new technology. Well, this post was answered by Honorata and Jędrzej. Indeed, they were not doctors, but PhDs of acoustics, and also they are both parents of young children who face lung problems. As PhDs of acoustics, they have repeatedly wondered what the doctor hears in these headphones. When they researched the topic, it turned out that the stethoscope as a medical device since its production 200 years ago wasn't improved. It turned out that stethoscope study is very subjective and there are many mistakes. We did short research, and saw that a device like StethoMe still doesn’t exist. It immediately grabbed our hearts, and this is how StethoMe was created. We established the company in May 2015 and started looking for financing. Back then, everyone was still in their “original” work, and after hours we started looking for funding and focused on the EU project. We have tried twice with the EU project and have not been able to get the money twice. The moment has come that we decided to look for an investor. Thanks to our contacts with previous projects, we managed to find an investor very quickly and very efficiently in the investment process, and thus we obtained the first 1.5 million pln to start the project. On January 1, 2017, we started full-time work on this project. Honorata and Jędrzej, still working at the university, brought in their best students, whom we hired. And this is how the adventure with StethoMe began.

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