Think about the best surgeon you've ever heard of.
What makes them exceptional isn't written in a textbook. It's in their hands: the way they move, the pressure they apply, and the decisions they make in a split second.
But today, that expertise lives inside one surgeon. It reaches only the patients they can operate on. And when they stop operating, that expertise disappears with them.
Today, 5 billion people lack access to safe, affordable surgical care.
In low- and lower-middle-income countries, nine out of ten people can't get basic surgical care. These countries are home to over a third of the world's population, yet receive just 6% of its operations. For those who do get surgery, the cost can be crushing: one in four people face financial catastrophe as a result. And there simply aren't enough surgeons to meet the need. Today, surgical care is concentrated in big cities, leaving many communities far from it.
Can we bring world-class surgical care to everyone, no matter where they live?
I believe we can.
If we can build surgical intelligence, it no longer has to live inside one surgeon.
If it doesn't live inside one surgeon, it can scale.
And if it can scale, world-class surgery can become affordable and accessible to everyone, everywhere.
That is the thesis behind NOU.
To build it, we learn from what expert surgery truly involves: not just the steps in a manual, but the movements, decisions, and adaptations that great surgeons develop over thousands of operations.
We won't get there all at once.
First, we build intelligence that assists today's surgeons, helping them perform safer and more consistent procedures.
Next, autonomous systems take on defined parts of an operation, with surgeons in control and supervising.
Eventually, one surgeon could extend their expertise across multiple autonomous systems, allowing the world's best surgical care to reach far more patients than they could ever operate on alone.
Why do I care?
I come from humble beginnings. Even today, people in my own family can't always get the surgical care they need, because of where they live or what they can afford. I've seen what that burden costs a family: the waiting, the worry, the choices no one should have to make.
And my family is not alone. Billions of people live with that burden every day.
I don't believe where you are born should decide whether you get world-class care.
That is why I'm building NOU : to make safe, world-class surgical care accessible to everyone.