My Journey and Mission in Healthcare
I have spent my career moving between worlds that might seem unrelated. On one side, negotiating multimillion-dollar deals in high-tech boardrooms. On the other hand, rebuilding a school for children in a remote Indonesian village. To me, they are deeply connected. Both are about using knowledge, networks, and innovation to improve people’s lives.
Three pillars of my current work.
Today, my life revolves around three pillars that form the foundation of my mission:
1. Shasta Medical.
Through Shasta Medical, I advise biotech companies, medtech and AI startups, and organisations navigating clinical trials. This is where strategy meets science, ensuring that technologies with real potential can cross the complex path from laboratory to patient.
2. Association for Better Health of Czech Employees.
As head of this association, I focus on prevention and corporate health. Health is not only a personal responsibility but also a societal one. Employers, governments, and institutions must be partners in building a healthier future.
3. PhD in AI in the medical sector.
I am pursuing my doctorate to deepen my expertise in how artificial intelligence can be integrated responsibly into healthcare. AI must serve as a trusted partner, enhancing diagnostics, drug evaluation, and prevention, but it must never replace the human focus of medicine.
Beyond these three roles, I remain deeply committed to humanitarian work. In Indonesia, I founded a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting children’s health and education. This work grounds me in the reality that innovation without access means little.
Why prevention is my focus.
I grew up in a family of doctors, many of them oncologists. From an early age, I witnessed both the determination of medicine and the heartbreak of illness. I saw families struggling with diseases that could have been detected earlier. It was clear to me that prevention must be the centre of healthcare. Every early diagnosis is a life potentially saved.
The Silicon Valley lesson.
My time in Silicon Valley shaped how I think about innovation. The American mindset, work hard, play hard, hire the best, and move fast, showed me that success is never the achievement of a single individual. It is the product of strong teams, ambitious goals, and relentless execution.
But I also learned a critical truth: innovation is not about trends or slogans. It is about real technology, grounded in evidence and data, that makes a measurable difference in people’s lives. AI in healthcare is powerful, but only if it translates from research into accessible solutions.
The bridge between worlds.
Some might see a contradiction between high-tech boardrooms and underserved communities in Asia. I see a bridge. We can and must use our networks, expertise, and capital to bring advanced technologies to the regions that need them most. This is where innovation becomes meaningful.
Together with my business partner, Peter M. Kovacs, we founded a new company in screening technology. Peter brings early-stage clinical development experience from Asia and Europe. I contribute knowledge of later-stage development from the US and Europe. Our combined networks create a powerful partnership to connect investors, innovators, and regulators worldwide.
Looking ahead: healthcare in 2030.
When I look to 2030, I see a very different kind of pharmacy. Every patient is offered a non-invasive scan that detects disease before symptoms appear. Every prescription is evaluated by AI for interactions and personalised to the patient’s biology. Prevention, self-monitoring, and early diagnostics are the standard of care, not the exception.
This vision is ambitious, but achievable. It requires collaboration across continents and disciplines. It requires investors who believe in evidence-first innovation. It requires regulators willing to adapt to new realities. Most of all, it requires a shared belief that health is a fundamental human right.
The mission is clear. Innovation must serve humanity. Technology must deliver access, not just headlines. And prevention must become the foundation of healthcare systems worldwide.
This is not a journey any of us can complete alone. It demands bridges between science and society, between boardrooms and villages, between data and compassion.
If you share this vision, whether as an investor, policymaker, or innovator, I invite you to connect. Together, we can make prevention the new standard of care and ensure that no one is left behind.
Timecode:
00:00 Introduction: My Journey and Mission
00:29 Professional Roles and Responsibilities
01:15 Personal Motivation and Vision
01:44 Key Learnings from Silicon Valley
02:14 The Importance of Real-World Impact
02:50 Bridging High-Tech and Remote Communities
03:11 AI in Healthcare: Partner, Not Master
04:08 Future of Healthcare: 2030 Vision
04:42 Conclusion: Building a Better Future Together
Links:
Pavlina Walter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlinawalter/
Website: PavlinaWalter.com
Episode Transcript:
I've negotiated multimillion dollar deals in high-tech, broad rooms. I also help rebuild a school for children in a remote Indonesia village. What these two worlds have in common, everything.
My name is Pavlina Walter and today my life revolves around three main pillars. I'm leading Shasta Medical. We advise biotech companies medical or AI startups and clinical trials. I'm serving as the head of association for better health of Czech employees, and also I'm, uh, pursuing my PhD in AI in medical sector.
Alongside these, I'm deeply involved in human. Are in work for nonprofit organization, which I created where we separate kids health and education in Indonesia. For many of the people seems those roles like pretty diverse, but they are all bonded by one mission to use innovation to make healthcare better and more accessible for everyone.
My vision for. A healthcare, it's not only the professional one, but also personal. One. I grew up in the family of doctors, mainly oncologists, eyewitnesses determination for medicine, but also heartbreak of illnesses. I was seeing families struggling with diseases and there was the moment I decided I would like to focus on prevention.
I truly believe that health is a fundamental right of humans. Moving to Silicon Valley was a key moment in my life. I learned that success is not brought by one single person, but with the group of a team who is working together and aiming the greatest This American mindset. Work hard, play hard, hire the best.
And move fast is actually the mission, uh, which I'm bringing also to my business now with my current partners. From this experience, I took one key point that innovation is not about trends and empty words, but about a real. Technology, like artificial intelligence, it always need to be grounded in the real world data.
It's important to have a really impact on human health. So if you have any technology which is closed in the lab, or actually you have a team who cannot get it to the market, it'll not help to anyone. So the real progress is when the technology actually gets to the people who need it most.
Some people might see there is actually a disconnection between the high tech broad rooms from Silicon Valley and. Some very pure communities in Asia. We can use our power and our knowledge and experience, bring the advanced technology to those region they need it most. When it comes to artificial intelligence in the healthcare, there is one golden rule, and we should always have it in mind that artificial intelligence must serve as our partner, not a master.
Based on our experiences, we decided with my business partner, Peter M Kovacs from Singapore, creating a new company in screening, focusing on bringing a new technology to the market. We are using our experiences. Peter is from early stage of clinical development from Asia and Europe, and man from later stages of the clinical development from USA and Europe.
We believe that our experience and network can bring powerful, comprehensive partnership to investors and innovators from all over the world.
Looking ahead 2030. I am imagining Pharmaca in totally different manner. I imagine that pharmacist will offer to every single patient special examination with non-invasive scanner to detect the symptoms earlier than actually disease can be detected. The drugs will be evaluated by AI system for drug interaction, and we will be much more focused on our self-monitoring of our healthcare and the prevention.
Making prevention the new standard of curry. It's a mission that requires all of us. Let's work together and build that future together.