Owen Zhang is a co-founder of Caralyst Health, where he leads the product team and directs growth and strategy. Owen obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Business and Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis in 2023. He originally set out on his medical journey by volunteering at his local firehouse as a junior firefighter and EMT. After realizing the impact that software could bring, Owen pivoted and began creating useful software tools that could serve his community. Fast forward to college, Owen served for three years as the President of Sling Health, the nation’s largest student-run healthtech accelerator. There he directed each cycle’s operations, doubled the mentor network of physicians and partner hospitals, and started an innovation speaker series that brought in esteemed guests such as Jim McKelvey and Sam Altman. During the last three summers, Owen worked at Google as a software engineer, designing and developing innovative features across Google Maps, Google Photos, and ChromeOS that have positively impacted tens of millions of users.

Having lived for seven years each in Australia, China, and the US, Owen has seen many healthcare disparities and how they affect individuals and their families. As someone whose strongest quality is empathy, one of the hardest for Owen to experience was the mental health and homelessness crisis in San Francisco. Embodying his most important values of kindness, loyalty, and innovation into the development of Caralyst, Owen hopes that Caralyst will bringmore equitable and accessible healthcare to all, and become a permanent resource formarginalized and underprivileged communities.