27. The Promise of TechBio w/ Alaa Halawa & Ayman AlAbdallah @ Mubadala Ventures
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Alaa Halawa & Ayman AlAbdallah are two integral members of the Mubadala Ventures team & lead the firm’s efforts in TechBio. Alaa Halawa is the Co-Head of Mubadala Capital Ventures SF, where he focuses on investing in venture and early growth-stage companies at the intersection of life sciences and technology. Among other themes within life sciences investing, Alaa has concentrated on the following: how technology is enhancing the pharmaceutical industry, from drug discovery through clinical trials; and how technology - and in particular bio-informatics, artificial intelligence and machine learning - is enhancing disease diagnosis. Alaa joined Mubadala in 2009 where he worked on designing and implementing the strategy to develop a technology cluster in Abu Dhabi focusing on semiconductor research through partnerships with Silicon Valley companies and academic institutions. Alaa then moved to the Bay Area to support the transition of Executive Leadership in one of Mubadala's key assets in Silicon Valley, GlobalFoundries, where he worked on a series of strategic, corporate development and transformation initiatives. Alaa holds an MBA from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from University of Jordan. Alaa sits on the boards of Recursion, Alloy Therapeutics, Outpace, Xilis, Innovaccer, among others. & Ayman AlAbdallah is a San Francisco-based investor at Mubadala Ventures. In his role, he focuses on early and growth stage investments in technology, healthcare, and life sciences. Prior to Mubadala, Ayman worked in corporate development at Tecan Group (SWX: Tecan) where he co-managed M&A and equity investment efforts in the US and Europe. He began his career as a management consultant at Accenture, where he helped businesses in Canada and the US solve critical strategy and operational challenges. He has also worked with the hedge fund team at OMERS Capital, where he focused on the intersection of machine learning and event-driven investing. In addition to his investing and consulting background, Ayman’s journey includes operating experience having been involved with a number of startups, including Sentinelle Medical (acquired by Hologics), Pullsar Technologies (acquired by Tecan), and Airo Health (Y Combinator, Summer 2016 batch). Ayman completed his M.B.A. and mechanical engineering studies at the University of Toronto where he received the Chalmers award and a fellowship for his engineering research thesis investigating novel Lab-on-a-Chip platforms. Ayman sits on the board of Xilis, Unlearn, & Ansa Thank you for listening! BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health. Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 
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