Kickstarter Doesn't Do Healthcare, MedStartr Seizes Opportunity

Jen Wike | opensource.com | September 19, 2012

MedStartr is a new way to fund healthcare initiatives—think Kickstarter for doctors, patients, and what ails them. It's headed up by Mike Pence and Alex Fair, two guys of different backgrounds and expertise who've come together to share the same dream and passion for helping those in physical need.

Mike Pence was Tech Lead at Kickstarter.com, is a Ruby on Rails guru, and together with Alex Fair, cofounded FairCareMD. Mike believes that we are all sympathetic to the advancement of medical science, whether currently healthy or stuggling with an illness or disease. Growing up in the 70s, his family had one of those great family doctors who saw them through many harrowing childhood illnesses, accidents, and surgeries. He says:

If I can write some code that brings a guy like that closer to his patients, or that puts more tools in his hand, then that is very gratifying.

Alex Fair was a scientist before cofounding FairCareMD, Expert-Med, Scanbuy.com, MPADS, and Doctors First. He was training to be a physicist when his grandmother got sick and went into cancer research instead. After many years, he left the lab bench to start his first healthcare software company. He says...