Kwamane Liddell did not build\u00a0ThriveLink<\/a>\u00a0because he thought healthcare needed another app.<\/p>\n He built it because he had seen what happens when access breaks down in ordinary, avoidable ways. His uncle suffered a stroke while living in a food desert, an experience that shaped how Liddell came to understand the link between health, infrastructure and everyday access.<\/p>\n Liddell\u2019s own path through healthcare gave him a different perspective on the problem. He started as a hospital janitor, later became a trauma nurse, trained as a lawyer and eventually moved into executive leadership.<\/p>\n Across those roles, he kept seeing the same pattern.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople often don\u2019t know what services are available, whether they qualify or how to navigate the systems designed to help them,\u201d Liddell said.<\/p>\n People were not always missing care because services were unavailable. They were missing care because the path to getting help did not match how they lived.<\/p>\n His experience reflects a broader challenge. More than 100 million Americans face barriers to accessing primary care, according to the\u00a0National Association of Community Health Centers<\/a>.<\/p>\n That is the problem ThriveLink set out to solve.<\/p>\n Throughout his career, Liddell met countless people whose biggest health challenges had little to do with medical care itself. They were struggling to find food, keep the lights on, secure transportation or access benefits they didn\u2019t know existed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt became clear that the problem wasn\u2019t a lack of resources,\u201d Liddell said. \u201cIt was a lack of access.\u201d<\/p>\n The company uses telephonic AI to help people apply for healthcare and social services over the phone. It supports 75 languages and does not require broadband, a smartphone or much digital confidence. That makes it useful for groups that many digital health products still struggle to reach, including older adults, people with disabilities and people dealing with literacy or internet access barriers.<\/p>\n \u201cHealthcare rarely breaks down at the point of diagnosis,\u201d Liddell said. \u201cIt breaks down when people are left to figure out what comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n ThriveLink is part of\u00a0Reckitt Catalyst<\/a>, a program developed with Acumen America that supports entrepreneurs working to expand health and wellness access in underserved communities. Along with funding, founders gain access to mentorship, expertise and networks that can help promising solutions reach more people.<\/p>\n \u201cFar too many people still face barriers to accessing the health services, information and support they need,\u201d said J\u00e9r\u00f4me Lemaire, president of North America at Reckitt. \u201cWhat continues to stand out is that many of the most practical solutions are coming from entrepreneurs who understand those challenges firsthand.\u201d<\/p>\n Amanda Ducach\u00a0saw a different challenge.<\/p>\n As co-founder and CEO of\u00a0Ema EQ<\/a>, she focused on what happens when someone has a health question and no obvious place to ask it. For many women, that can mean sitting with symptoms that feel too specific for a search engine and too easy to dismiss in traditional care settings.<\/p>\n Ema EQ, an AI platform built for women\u2019s health, was trained on more than 10 million real conversations.<\/p>\n Research from the\u00a0World Economic Forum<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0McKinsey Health Institute<\/a>\u00a0found that women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health than men, creating an estimated $1 trillion annual economic opportunity if those disparities are meaningfully addressed by 2040.<\/p>\n Women were searching everywhere for answers and rarely finding information that reflected their actual experiences.<\/p>\n \u201cWomen can find information everywhere,\u201d Ducach said. \u201cWhat was missing was something that could understand a person\u2019s situation in context and respond the way a thoughtful clinician would, asking the right follow-up question, noticing what someone leaves unsaid and recognizing when something needs real attention. That is where better understanding, better questions and more informed decisions actually come from.\u201d<\/p>\n General AI can return a confident answer, but the hard part in women\u2019s health is everything built around that answer: the clinical grounding, the safety and the ability to understand context.<\/p>\n \u201cMost tools were built for general questions and treat women\u2019s health as a small corner of everything they know,\u201d Ducach said. \u201cEma EQ is built for women\u2019s health specifically, and her real value is in how she reasons, not simply what she knows.\u201d<\/p>\n That distinction is shaping how users seek information. Instead of relying on broad search results, people are asking more specific questions about symptoms, conditions and care options. In some cases, that means identifying concerns earlier or arriving at conversations with providers better informed.<\/p>\n Healthcare still asks a lot from the user. Download this. Log in there. Fill out a form. Wait for a callback. Search for symptoms. Sort through conflicting information. Follow up again.<\/p>\n ThriveLink meets people on the phone, while Ema EQ starts with the questions women are already asking.<\/p>\n \u201cFor years, healthcare technology has been designed primarily around institutions, workflows and systems,\u201d Ducach said. \u201cWe\u2019re starting to see more solutions built around how people actually seek information, make decisions and access care. The most useful innovations are often the ones that make it easier for people to understand their options, get answers to their questions and take the next step with confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/image-5.png?w=1024\")
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