USC Marshall MBAs Found Startup Aimed at Sharing Surgical Advancements
Brian Conyer, MBA student at USC’s Marshall School of Business had a ‘Eureka!’ moment during a busy time in his life. He was pursuing his studies part-time at the school and juggling a successful career in healthcare sales.
Conyer will graduate from the program in 2017. His serves as a perfect example of what happens when one’s career and MBA studies synthesize at just the right moment.
While on the job, he had observed that surgeons, in order to share knowledge tools related to their fields, were using such inefficient platforms as Facebook, DropBox, and YouTube. This meant hours of weeding through content that they didn’t need. Thus spawned Conyer’s startup, GIBLIB, named in honor of the inventor of the heart-lung machine, Dr. John Gibbon.
GIBLIB offers users a multi-channel video library especially for surgeons. Not only does it allow the doctors to share content, but they can also broadcast live surgeries with either a split-screen or 360 degree view of the proceedings. Surgeons in countries where advances may be slower to arrive can gain access to peers across the globe who are using the most up-to-the-minute technologies.
Conyer noted, “Social impact …plays a big role in what we’re doing. Using our platform, doctors in developing countries and economically poor regions of the world gain access to the best information and the preeminent surgeons. GIBLIB can play a real role in raising the standards of education in surgical care.”
As Conyer developed the startup, he saw that he would need help. He enlisted two Marshall MBA classmates, Jihye Shin and Jeff Loo. After promising his partners that he’d be able to give them salaries in a year, Conyer was able to pay them in just ten months.
A great source of pride for its staff, GIBLIB now employees a number of Marshall grads. “So far, six out of eight people here at GIBLIB are USC affiliated,” said Jeff Loo. “That adds up to a lot of Trojan pride.”
About the Author
Maggie Boccella
Maggie Boccella, a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, is a freelance writer, artist and photographer. She has consulted on various film and multimedia projects, and she also serves as a juror for the city's annual LGBTQIA Film Festival.
