About Us.
Two minds — one shared obsession.
Amplify Human Genius. Positively Impact Society and the Planet. We're building VITAL to make intelligence compound instead of reset.
Hicham Naim
Co-Founder & CEO
Chief Innovation & Technology Officer
I've never been good at thinking in straight lines. My brain just doesn't work that way.
Give me a problem, and I won't give you the obvious solution. I'll give you three unexpected connections, two analogies from completely unrelated fields, and a question that reframes the whole thing. It used to frustrate my colleagues. Now it's why I build companies.
My path makes sense only in reverse. I started at the bedside—a clinical pharmacist in a university hospital, watching patients navigate fear and uncertainty, learning that healthcare isn't about molecules but about humans looking for someone to trust. Then I spent nearly a decade in Big Four strategy consulting, translating complexity into clarity for pharmaceutical and life sciences leaders. Eventually, I went inside, leading Strategy & Transformation at Takeda's Global Portfolio Division, where I wrestled with the impossible: balancing global consistency with local agility across 80+ markets.
Everywhere I went, I saw the same thing: brilliant people drowning. Not in complexity—in repetition. The same problems solved again and again. The same expertise vanishing with every departure. The same intelligence resetting with every new project.
It drove me crazy.
Somewhere along the way, work stopped being about thinking and started being about surviving the tools we built to help us think. That's backwards. That's broken. That's what I want to fix.
I co-founded Health Tech Without Borders because I believe technology should serve humanity—not the other way around. We've delivered over 200,000 virtual consultations in crisis zones, trained thousands of clinicians, and proven that when you design with purpose, remarkable things happen.
Learn more at htwb.orgI wrote a book called "Crossroads" about the choices we face as a civilization—health, planet, future. It wasn't an academic exercise. It was me trying to work out what I actually believe and what I'm willing to build toward.
Here's what I landed on:
Intelligence should compound, not reset.
Every project, every transition, every tool—the learning should stack, not scatter.
Work should feel human again.
The machines should handle the repetition. The humans should handle the meaning.
Technology shouldn't cost us the planet.
The AI arms race is an energy disaster. We can build smarter—right-sized intelligence, efficient orchestration, better outcomes with fewer resources.
That's VITAL. That's my way of contributing. I'm the one asking "what if?"—sketching visions at 2am, making non-linear leaps, pushing for the uncomfortable reframe. Blaise turns my creative chaos into operational reality. Together, we balance.
Seeing futures others haven't imagined yet—and making them feel inevitable.
Vision. Innovation. Technology architecture. The "why" and the "what if."
Blaise Jacholkowski
Co-Founder & COO
Chief Business Officer
I'm the guy who looks at chaos and sees structure waiting to emerge.
It's not that I don't appreciate big ideas—I love them. But I've learned something in 20 years at the intersection of health and digital: vision without execution is just a TED talk. The world is full of brilliant concepts that never made it past the pitch deck. I'm obsessed with the ones that actually get built.
My career started in the lab. I trained as a biomedical engineer at EPFL, learning to think in systems—how things connect, interact, and fail. That engineering mindset never left me, even as I moved from molecules to markets.
Since then, I've worn every hat. CEO of a medical-grade startup that remotely tracked cancer patients' symptoms and quality of life—real patients, real stakes, real regulatory scrutiny. Chairman of a consumer digital health company. Co-founder of a medtech venture. Strategic advisor to pharmaceutical giants navigating digital transformation. Mentor to dozens of startups through programs like DayOne Basel. Jury member deciding which innovations deserve funding and which don't.
I've been in the rooms where products get approved—and where they get rejected. I know what auditors ask. I know what investors scrutinize. I know the difference between what customers say they need and what they actually need.
And I kept seeing the same pattern that drove Hicham crazy too: brilliant technology going nowhere. Impressive demos. Pilots that never scaled. AI that never earned trust. Digital tools that made clinicians' lives harder, not easier.
The problem wasn't the technology. It was the approach. We kept building AI that replaced human judgment instead of amplifying it. We kept chasing speed over trust. We kept ignoring that in regulated industries, every recommendation carries liability—and professionals need to defend their decisions, not just make them.
I'm deeply passionate about longevity and healthspan—not just living longer, but living better. I've spoken at the Davos Digital Forum, the Global Longevity Summit in Geneva, and conferences across Europe about digital biomarkers, Software as a Medical Device, and the future of regulated digital health platforms.
But speaking about the future got old. I wanted to build it. At VITAL, I take Hicham's "what if?" and ask "how exactly?" I build the roadmap, the metrics, the governance, the operational backbone. I make sure the creative leaps land somewhere real—somewhere defensible, scalable, and sustainable.
Turning ambitious ideas into operational reality that survives contact with regulators, customers, and the market.
Operations. Commercial strategy. Business development. The "how" and the "how much."
Better Together.
We're not the same person twice. We're complements.
"Hicham sees the future. Blaise builds the bridge to get there.
One without the other is just potential. Together, it's a company."
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