G. Hadjigeorgiou: The 9 “No”, Zoe and the Battle against Covid-19
By Endeavor Greece Jan 25, 2021
Although he was just 17 years old, George Hadjigeorgiou from Thessaloniki was already resolved to study in the United States. He applied to nine top American universities and to one that was widely unknown. He received nine rejection letters, but the Clarkson University in Potsdam sent him the longed-for answer accepting his application.
At Endeavor Greece’s podcast “Outliers” whose media partner is moneyreview.gr, he explains how that acceptance letter paved the way for him to study at top universities and launch a successful career.
George Hadjigeorgiou is now co-founder of Zoe, a healthtech company, which was established in London in 2017 and has raised so far 30 millions dollars. The company was founded with the cooperation of Dr. Tim Spector, professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London, and Jonathan Wolf, former Chief Product Officer at Criteo. But let’s start from the beginning.
When the then young George arrived at Potsdam, “it was a great shock,” he recollects. From day one he wanted to go away. For one more time, he applied to several American universities, and again he received nothing but rejection. However, he was not discouraged. In his third attempt, he decided to concentrate on one application only; the Tufts university. And he succeeded. After he graduated, he continued his postgraduate studies at MIT. “This process made it clear to me that one has to set their goals and go after them,” he points out.
He started his professional career following a “secure path,” by choosing to work for Accenture. He did well in his job, but he was not satisfied. He then joined Yahoo, where he took on greater responsibilities. However, “I was again a very small link in a huge chain,” he says. He came back to Greece for some time and he was co-founder at e-food. His next step was HouseTrip, in which he served as a managing director at difficult times for the company. He led the company to profitability within six months, but he soon realized that it was impossible to compete the giants of the sector, such as AirBnB.
In the end, the idea to establish Zoe was born in Crete. The name of the company stems from the Greek work for life (zoi), since its aim is to help people worldwide to lead a better life by improving their health. The company uses artificial intelligence to collect data about how and what people eat, and investigates the impact of eating habits to people’s health.
Nowadays Zoe’s fundamental service is a biological test kit, which analyses metabolism and gut health, showing how the human body responds to various kinds of food. Based on the facts, the user receives a report about the combination of foods that is suitable for their body.
Zoe in the Battle against Covid-19
The most recent product of the company, however, contributes to the planet’s battle against the new coronavirus pandemic. It is the application COVID Symptom Study for mobile devices that run on Android or iOS. It is the outcome of the company’s cooperation with King’s College London and the Guy and St. Thomas hospitals. It is basically an epidemiological research mobile app, which reports symptoms from a large number of people and allows calculations of epidemiological results. Initially, the app was presented in Britain, at a later date at the United States and it will soon be introduced in India as well. It had been downloaded 1 million times within 24 hours from its release in the UK. By May 2020, 3 million people had downloaded it on their mobile phones, and by July 2020 it had exceeded the 4 million users.
Scientific research based on the app has been published in scientific journals, such as Science and Nature. By using data available through the app, researchers have succeeded in identifying six distinct types of Covid-19 and predicting which symptoms are most likely to lead to severe disease.