Maria Artunduaga

Founder, CEO at Samay

Speaker

Born in Colombia, Dr. Maria Artunduaga (MD, MPH, MTM) trained at Harvard and the University of Chicago, where her grandmother's death from preventable lung disease became her catalyst for change. That loss drove her to pivot entirely, pursuing advanced studies at the University of Washington, UC Berkeley, and UCSF to bridge medicine and engineering and build solutions that could intervene before irreversible damage occurs. As the founder of Samay, she invented Sylvee, an AI-powered wearable using acoustic resonance to detect subtle lung changes years before conventional testing, giving physicians the window they need to save lives.

A recognized leader in MedTech, Dr. Artunduaga holds 22 patents, has raised $7M in non-dilutive and venture funding (including NSF and NIH support), and is published in top journals like Nature, NEJM, and PNAS. Her accolades include the MedTech Innovator Grand Prize (as the first LatAm winner), the Bayer Foundation Women Entrepreneurs Award, and recognition as a Bloomberg Top 100 LATAM Innovator and Inc. Female Founder to