Giovanna Forte

I am Co-Founder and CEO of Forte Medical, as well as former Communications Consultant (16 years), inventor (medical devices and a game) and regular public speaker on entrepreneurship and women's health. Forte Medical is an ambitious SME solving the overlooked need for reliable urine specimen collection most pressingly for women's UTI and prenatal health, which our FemTech Peezy Midstream is designed to address. Real world evidence confirms reduced contamination, retesting and antibiotic prescribing. Our Tech makes urine specimens fit for purpose, befitting the need for precision, modern medicine. I founded the business with my brother Dr Vincent Forte, retired NHS GP, Forensic Physician and Medical Author who invented world-first Peezy Midstream to revolutionise diagnostic outcomes for women's routine UTI and prenatal screening. We now have two new devices to add to our Specimen Collection: Peezy First Stream and Peezy Twin Stream. Forte Medical is poised to scale in global markets, supporting a paradigm shift to urine for many areas of diagnostic work, because urine has parity with blood. Our low-cost, non-invasive devices can reduce repeat tests, repeat Physician visits, unnecessary antibiotic prescribing, unplanned hospital admissions and more, saving £$millions for healthcare providers, whilst treating patients faster with targeted medicine. I launched my first sole-proprietor business aged 26, with event support agency Fortissima! Being my own boss allowed me to manage childcare alongside becoming the family breadwinner and then, single mother. My second business Forte Communication worked with clients across industrial design, architecture and education for 16 years, building profile and revenues. My now adult daughters are both successful entrepreneurs. An inventor in my own right, I have created a game designed to help children with mental arithmetic skills; it happens also to be fantastic for older folk with cognitive memory problems. This analogue and digital game is being prepared for market. I also conceived Face to a Name, a system designed to communicate previously full lives to the carers of those in hospital or care homes, who cannot communicate this for themselves: a humane, overlooked aspect of elderly care that costs nothing and provides a more complete picture of the patient, to everyone's benefit. I would like to see this mandated for all elderly care settings.