Translator: Antonia Varo Garrido Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
Good afternoon and thanks to the organization for the invitation.
What brings me here is a matter I have been keen on
for a long time, it is health.
In particular, global health has had great advances
thanks to the technology incursion in the past decades.
But it seems that unfortunately these benefits have not been shared
fairly in all areas of health.
In the case of restorative dentistry
which is what I want to talk about today,
technology may has become a barrier
due to certain features such as the high costs
or the difficulty of accessibility.
What has this sad reality entailed?
Well, in much of the world, even in the cities
which are usually considered to be perhaps high technology rectors,
all the manufacturing procedures of prostheses are handmade.
It involves a large amount of material,
it is made totally dependent on very specialized skills
and in some specific cases
you need more than three or four appointments
for the elaboration of a single prosthetic device.
Or even worse, you need more than three people
to be able to manufacture a prosthesis.
That's something that might seem inconceivable
and many of us do not know
when we are out of this circle.
But it turns out that it has not a very good impact
for investment in time nor costs.
Starting from this problem, a team of Venezuelans
and - I feel very proud to say - and me,
we co-founded a company which has a mission:
to create a technology capable to design and manufacture
dental prostheses with anatomical hyperealism,
with highly functional features and esthetics in the dental surgery
in ten minutes, and without human manual intervention.
It may sound a little bit complex but it turns out that the concept
was relatively simple.
Basically we rely on multiple technologies
that had something to give us according to our requirements,
as for example mechatronics,
or photogrammetry, among others.
And, in parallel, we were also developing
one of the largest digital data library today
in the world of dental anatomical structures
and of prosthetic fields,
to join them so that we can establish
our four main pillars, which are artificial intelligence,
3D printing, nanotechnology, and robotics.
Our technology has an intraoral scanner
capable of capturing high-definition images
which are sent to our restorative software,
guided by an artificial intelligence
and able to design and manufacture, relying on 3D printing,
the dental prostheses
according to the specific requirements of a particular patient.
And a very important thing too, supported by nanotechnology:
we were able to manufacture the materials
according to the current dental requirements.
All these entrepreneurial processes, of creation and generation of new ideas
may start with some uncertainty.
It also starts with a briefcase full of ideas.
But with great effort, we can go on achieving whatever we want.
It's not easy to say this,
but I assure you that if you are able to diagnose
some kind of problem and you may have an idea to fix it
as long as you seek to support yourself in some kind of resource,
you may be able to break the paradigms of science
that always set out certain barriers
and maybe you could be able to contribute something
to humankind.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)