This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with returning guest Barbara Hastie, founder and CEO of a startup called PoWER, which stands for Protecting Women Every Ride.
She explains how the recent OnRamp Healthcare Conference in Green Bay helped her realize new avenues for her early-stage business, which aims to provide rider- and driver-side security certification for rideshare services like Lyft and Uber.
“We have been trying to team up and get some strategic partnerships with a few health care systems,” she said. “What will happen is that individuals may schedule a surgery… They do all the preparation, and then they show up by an Uber. And then the surgeon has to verify they have a safe and secure ride home.”
But she says some care providers aren’t allowed to send certain patients home with rideshare services. Hastie says that can lead to important procedures being cancelled altogether when the patient doesn’t have a guaranteed safe ride home. She sees an opportunity there to certify rideshare drivers for those patients.
“We’re the answer,” she said. “We can certify the drivers and have them PoWER-certified, so they’re safe and secure. We can guarantee, that for all intents and purposes.”
Hastie says the PoWER team has been testing security protocols and developing the app as they work toward launching the platform.
“Hopefully, some of these meetings and these strategic partnerships we’re building will really allow us to make a big splash,” she said.
Listen to the podcast below, sponsored by UW-Madison:
https://soundcloud.com/wispolitics/wisbiz-podcast-barbara-hastie-at-onramp
