In 2023, Stiliyana won the WE Innovate programme with Matrix, a 21st century replacement of the speculum. A digitally enabled device designed for patient comfort and self-use in a clinical setting.
The idea for Matrix first came to Stiliyana during her Master’s in Healthcare and Design at Imperial and the Royal College of Art. During the course, she secured a Hackspace grant to produce an early prototype of her concept.
The project developed further when she submitted her idea to the FemTech Lab – an accelerator specialising in women’s health and wellness. She secured one of 12 places on the autumn 2022 cohort and was awarded an equity-free grant of £10,000 at the end of the programme, which she invested in obtaining a patent.
Shortly afterwards, she had the opportunity to raise her profile as a guest speaker at the Radical Health Festival in Helsinki, which focuses on digital transformation in healthcare.
Matrix has since won an Innovate UK Transformative Technologies grant and aims to create a prototype demonstrator.
