Meet the mentor helping lead a revolution in women’s healthcare

“I like to help.”

That’s what Henry Shibayama will tell you if you ask him what inspired him to get involved in mentoring.

“I like to help, I like to teach, I like to share my knowledge.”

And share he does. Shibayama, who has worked at Dassault Systèmes for more than 8 years, discovered the company’s fab lab just three days after transferring from the company’s location in Brazil to its American headquarters outside Boston. Touring one of the campus buildings, he wandered into the lab and instantly wanted to get involved.

He reached out to the lab and said he wanted to contribute. After some time getting acquainted with his new settings, he eagerly awaited a match for his skills and a start-up in the lab’s accelerator program that was in need of them.

Today, he’s volunteering his time to work as a mentor for Fem Therapeutics, a Canada-based medical device start-up. The company has created a personalized prosthetic insert for treating patients with pelvic floor disorders, which affects some 50% of women who have given birth. It’s a noble cause, and one Shibayama can relate to: his wife suffered from a pelvic floor disorder after giving birth to the couple’s youngest child just seven months ago.

“It’s really interesting because I started working with them at the time my wife was diagnosed with this problem, and I was like, ‘Hey, there’s a need for that,’” he said.

For the last year, Shibayama has been helping Fem Therapeutics automatically optimize the design of their prostheses by leveraging external data from patients. Doing so requires combining data science methods with simulation, two of Shibayama’s specialties. The company’s efforts are being developed in tandem with a new method of healthcare known as personalized medicine. Using artificial intelligence and 3D printing, they’re providing customized solutions made for a patient’s own unique anatomy, a significant advancement toward improving patient care and outcomes. 

Having a personal connection makes the work even more meaningful for Shibayama, and getting to mentor start-ups like Fem Therapeutics has even changed the way he sees his job at Dassault Systèmes.

“It’s our role to think outside the box,” Shibayama said, “[To] see from your own experience and your knowledge and try to help these startups the best you can. I think that’s the way I approach work, not only with startups but with every client I have a meeting with.”

As an Industry Process Consultant in NETVIBES, Dassault Systemes’ AI-augmented business intelligence division, he’s found an outlet not only for his technical expertise but his creativity, too.

Most of Shibayama’s work focuses on matching large companies with technologies that they’re in need of. Though that might sound simple, sometimes, it’s anything but. He works with clients to understand their unique business needs, identify potential solutions to address them and then adapts offerings accordingly to deliver tailored solutions that will work for them. That extends to anything from understanding how their data is structured to configuring the right add-ons or capabilities. As a consultant well-versed in this type of work and in the Dassault Systèmes portfolio of solutions, this expertise made him an exceptional candidate for the lab’s mentoring program.

Shibayama loves it. It’s the perfect combination of applying his technical knowledge with his imagination, providing invaluable assistance for companies setting out to change the future for the better.

Outside of work, he’s taking on another invaluable task: introducing his young son to music, aiming to stoke a love for it like his own.

“I’m trying to be a better musician myself and maybe that will influence him somehow,” he said. “Maybe that’s silly, but that’s what I have in mind.”

Henry Shibayama is part of a cohort of Dassault Systèmes employees lending their knowledge to ground-breaking start-ups. Check out how some of his other colleagues are driving progress.