The Art of Connection: Healthcare in the Age of Technology
Kenan Akbas

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The tools we use to shape our world, they in turn shape us. Whether it’s the brush in a painter’s hand or the software code that organizes the clinic day. The interface becomes part of our perception. Technology, like medicine, is an expression of relationship.

In this conversation with Kenan Akbas, we trace the unlikely path from acupuncture to algorithms. This is a story that begins in the club scene of 1990s New York, winds its way through photography, Chinese medicine, Taiwan, and eventually the creation of platforms that help practitioners connect more fluidly with their patients. Kenan’s work sits at the intersection of tradition, innovation and inquisitiveness.

Listen into this discussion as we explore what it means to build technology rooted in care and how AI might become not a replacement for human skill, but a partner in the development of it. There are challenges in evolving with our tools as we move into a new stage of development with our exo-nervous system. There’s no going back, the question is how do you move forward into a new terrain.

 

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Bicultural Upbringing
  • Early Fascination with Chinese Culture
  • Experimentation and a Turning Point
  • A First Treatment That Changed Everything
  • From Chaos to Contemplation
  • Creative Experiments in Music and Photography
  • The Art of Seeing: Photography and Medicine
  • Study and Apprenticeship in Taiwan
  • The Street Sense of Diagnosis
  • Building Unified Practice
  • From Software to AI: Handcraft Health
  • Trust, Collaboration, and the Future

“Build something bigger than you.”

You are not your clinic. Shape it into a place where care extends beyond your hands, where many people, skills, and modalities contribute to the patients healing.

This way, you can lay the groundwork for business that can generate income while you’re on vacation or retirement.

Kenan Akbas

Kenan Akbas is a serial entrepreneur and product leader in integrative health technology. He’s the founder of Handcraft Health, an AI-powered dispensary platform helping practitioners create personalized care packages, manage refills, and grow their practices through automation.

Previously, he founded and sold Unified Practice, the first mobile EMR for Traditional Chinese Medicine. While studying Chinese language and TCM in Taiwan and working inside hospitals and clinics, Kenan gained firsthand insight into holistic medicine at scale- an experience that inspired his mission to bring technology to TCM and integrative healthcare.

Based in Japan, Kenan continues building products that connect AI, healthcare, and culture worldwide.

Links and Resources

Visit Handcraft Health, Kenan’s latest entrepreneurial endeavor with practice management, AI and supplying your patients with herbs and supplements.

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