WoW Woman in FemTech I Lauren Burns, co-founder and CEO of Path

Lauren Burns is the co-founder and CEO of Path.

The company “Path Health App Limited” is an early-stage start-up working within the Femtech space. Their first product, Path, is a self-reporting tool that enables clinicians to gather the bespoke and quantitative health data they need to find patterns and make an accurate diagnosis faster. Path’s unique ability to create bespoke symptom trackers and generate a health report tailored to a clinician is specifically designed to help those suffering/potentially suffering from chronic reproductive health issues.

Lauren has worked in the tech sector for the past six years, both as a Software Engineer and Technical Product Consultant. Lauren has a passion for education and encouraging women into STEM careers, which is why she co-founded a Belfast-based Undergraduate Women in Tech community to support young women during their years at university. She’s also the current UK Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) apprentice of the year. Lauren’s proudest achievement to date had been co-founding Path: A company on a mission to close the gender health gap and speed up diagnosis times for female reproductive health conditions that are notoriously hard to diagnose. 

Lauren, tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.

I started working for a tech company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland when I was 18 as part of an apprenticeship scheme. I then spent the next five years completing my degree part-time whilst working as a full-stack software developer building large-scale government projects designed to improve the lives of millions living across the UK.

Joining the tech industry a few years ahead of schedule gave me the opportunity to get involved in a lot of projects outside of my day job. These included leading code camps for hundreds of students and building educational programs specifically designed for “at-risk” young people, giving them the skills to get their first job. There’s no better feeling in the world than when a 16-year-old tells you that you’re the reason they’ve secured their first job.

I can’t resist a hackathon, and in 2020 I won the Women Who Code global hackathon with a machine learning solution that predicts the likelihood that a patient admitted to hospital with Covid-19 would require admittance to the ICU. This system can help hospitals manage the supplies required to save critically ill patients. 

Six years on with a degree under my belt, my time as an apprentice is over, but I’ll always be incredibly grateful for all the opportunities it has given me. Having no student loans to pay back is also a massive bonus.

How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?

I was academically inclined at school, but even at that, I knew that I wanted to start working as soon as possible, and another four years of full-time study at university wasn’t appealing to me. That’s when I decided to start looking at apprenticeship opportunities. 

I had two close calls where, if things had gone differently, I wouldn’t be where I am today. The first was when I signed up to study A-level Computing, which my single-sex, female high school was offering for the first time. It turned out that only three people in the entire year had signed up to take the class, with my friends that were doing Advanced mathematics A-level saying that Computing was way too hard for them. That was the first time I really noticed the disparity between what careers men and women are conditioned from a young age to believe they are (and aren’t) capable of. Fortunately for me, they still ran the class, and my love for computer science grew. 

The second major challenge came when I asked the school careers advisor for help. He told me, “Oh, there’s no opportunities for technology apprenticeships in Northern Ireland, you’d need to go over to England for that.” Now, if I'd been built differently, I would have trusted the so-called “careers expert” and left it there. But I decided to do my own research, and six months later I was starting my career five years early and getting my degree completely paid for. I think the moral of this story is to always trust your own judgement and take what other people tell you with a pinch of salt. Carve out your own path.

How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle? What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in?

Kick-starting my career four years ahead of schedule gave me so many opportunities to try new things, explore different roles, and start to look for a career where I could find joy in the little micro-passions alongside the big wins.

I believe that everyone should give themselves the space once they start a new career to think less about climbing the career ladder and focus more on what they love. Try new things, change your job, and try again, without the pressure of feeling like you’re never going to make it. When you find a role you really love, it will all be worth it.

One of my largest personal obstacles was a classic case of imposter syndrome, which tends to happen when you join a big company straight out of school and feel like you’re completely winging it. I found that the only way to start overcoming this was to push myself to take on bigger challenges, and with each success, I started to believe I could take on anything I set my mind to. 

Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why?

I’m incredibly passionate about giving young women the tools and confidence they need to join the tech industry, as I believe that no young person should have to face the barriers, I, and others, had to overcome whilst trying to follow this career path. The tech industry is slowly shaping every aspect of our lives, and we need more inclusive teams around the table when the big decisions are being made to ensure we’re building a safer, more inclusive world for generations to come.

What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?

 The Femtech space has completely exploded in the last few years and is set to be worth over 60 billion US dollars by 2027. This revolution is one that can’t come soon enough, with areas such as female reproductive health being under-researched, underfunded, and drastically misunderstood. The Femtech space to date has been saturated with fertility, period, and pregnancy-related products, but with more fantastic start-ups focusing on issues such as chronic pain and menopause that have been historically overlooked, I predict that game-changing medical breakthroughs will come to light from us having more access to female health data than ever before. 

Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?

There are so many incredible people out there that are sharing their health journeys to raise awareness of the battle women are fighting to achieve adequate care. Two of my favourites are @theendomonologues and the @coppafeel community. Another woman that I really admire is Dr Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter), who has made incredible strides in advocating for women’s health and helping women to accept the gifts mother nature gave them.

Find out more about Path on their website.

Connect with Lauren on LinkedIn.

This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, founder, and CEO of Women of Wearables. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship, and diversity. Follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic and read her stories for Forbes here.