Stefan Agamanolis is Associate Director of Strategic Research Programs at Weatherhead School of Management. With over 20 years of leadership experience in technology development and growing innovation ecosystems, he currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer for Xploro, a Cleveland-based digital health startup focused on empowering young patients with information. Additionally, he supports early-stage tech start-ups through consulting roles at Project Medtech and the Youngstown Business Incubator. A software engineer by training, he received his masters and PhD degrees from the MIT Media Lab, and his previous roles include Chief Innovation Officer at Akron Children’s Hospital and founding executive roles at Media Lab Europe and Distance Lab.
Stefan has over 20 years of experience serving in various leadership roles revolving around developing and commercializing new technologies and cultivating innovation ecosystems. Among several current activities, he serves as Chief Strategy Officer for Xploro, a digital health start-up seeking to empower young patients with healthcare information, leveraging augmented reality, gameplay and conversational agents. He also supports early-stage technology start-ups through roles as a consultant at Project Medtech and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Youngstown Business Incubator.
Earlier he was Chief Innovation Officer at Akron Children’s Hospital, where he built an innovation center that commercialized staff inventions and formed connections with the business community for co-development collaborations and investments. He also created the Patient Experience function, assisted in research administration, and led earlier efforts in telehealth and telemedicine during his 12 years at the hospital.
Earlier in his career, Stefan had more than 10 years of experience inside the MIT Media Laboratory, first as a graduate student and later as one of the founding research directors at Media Lab Europe, its former sister lab in Ireland. He later became the founding chief executive and research director of Distance Lab, an initiative in Scotland that developed digitally-enabled product and service concepts to address healthcare, education, and other challenges in rural and remote areas of the world. In 2010, this lab became part of the Glasgow School of Art. Stefan also served as a visiting associate professor of engineering during the formative years of NYU Abu Dhabi, where he led an intensive learning experience in design and innovation for first-year university students.