Pitch Perfect Africa 2025

Nayana Thalanki Anantha | Founder & CTO, Cirayu Innovations 

Nayana Thalanki Anantha, MHSc. Clinical engineering, is a seasoned product manager in med-tech and specializes in translating medical devices from bench to bedside. She is driven by medical technology that is backed by exciting science and those that are able to solve challenges in healthcare with novel product designs. She is a strong advocate of user-centric product design so as to maximize clinical adoption and market success. With a background in engineering and research, she has the expertise required to take an innovation from concept to regulatory market approval in the US and Canada, including the necessary clinical testing. 

After completing her Masters in Clinical engineering from University of Toronto, Nayana gained experience in developing novel access technologies for non-verbal children at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Hospital. Following which she ventured into industry with medical wearable technologies where she led product design and regulatory strategy for Health Canada and FDA approval. She returned to research at UHN and was one of the inventors of a novel imaging platform to be used during breast conserving surgeries that was successfully acquired by a German/Japanese company. Through this journey, she gained the invaluable experience of fulfilling multiple roles in start-up environments. She has also worked on projects for WHO in technical evaluation of medical equipment for the Covid emergency response. 

Nayana is the founder and CTO of Cirayu Innovations working on bringing a novel method for cervical cancer detection to market. 

Mxolisi Nkutha | Founder, Ubuntu Inclusive Centre | Co-Founder, Gifftid AI | Board Member, Save the Children South Africa 

Mxolisi Nkutha is a South African social innovator and ecosystem builder dedicated to advancing inclusive healthcare, clinical research, and technology for social good. He is the Founder of the Ubuntu Inclusive Centre, which operates the Ubuntu Impact Clinic — a first-of-its-kind township-based inclusive health clinic integrating disability care, clinical research, and digital health access. The clinic has partnered with the University of Colorado’s Linda Crnic Institute to advance clinical research focused on improving healthcare outcomes for people living with Down syndrome. 

As Co-Founder of Gifftid AI, a London-based AI-for-Good platform, Mxolisi leads efforts to help social enterprises and SMEs across Africa use intelligent data systems to enhance their visibility to investors and commercial partners, enabling them to scale sustainable impact. 

He also serves on the Board of Save the Children South Africa, supporting programmes that protect and empower vulnerable children through innovation and systems change. 

Mxolisi’s work bridges health, AI, and social innovation, driven by a belief that inclusive systems and data-driven solutions can transform how communities thrive. 

Cari Whyne | Susanne and William Holland Chair in Musculoskeletal Research, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre 

Dr. Cari Whyne, PhD, FIOR, is the Susanne and William Holland Chair in Musculoskeletal Research at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. She is a Senior Scientist and the Director of the Holland Bone and Joint Research Program at Sunnybrook Research Institute and a Full Professor in the Department of Surgery, Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Toronto. Dr. Whyne received her BSc. in Mechanical Engineering from Queen’s University and her PhD from the University of California Berkeley / University of California San Francisco in Bioengineering. Her focus on clinically translational musculoskeletal bioengineering research is aimed the development and application of minimally invasive technology and therapeutics, computational modeling and image analysis, and surgical modeling and optimization. She has a strong interest in accessible technology and global health. Innovations from her laboratory have been advanced through clinical trials and been shared on open source platforms or alternately commercialized through SMEs, start-up company formation and licensing. She works on numerous innovation initiatives providing mentorship to trainees and early stage companies.