Conor McGinn is the co-founder and CEO of Akara, an AI company building foundational infrastructure to improve efficiency inside hospital operating rooms. Conor holds a PhD in robotics and artificial intelligence, with research focused on translating advanced sensing and robotics from the lab into real-world, high-stakes environments like healthcare.Akara, named one of TIME’s Best Innovations of 2025, leverages its AI platform to capture surgical event data in real time using privacy-preserving thermal sensors, enabling hospitals to coordinate staff and robots while automating scheduling and reporting. In this conversation, I spoke with Conor about how to decide which problems are worth solving in healthcare, why infrastructure matters more than surface-level optimization, and what needs to exist before technologies like robotics can work reliably inside hospitals. Enjoy!