Portrait No. 001
Annie Munoz
Founder
My Village Innovations Inc
I started My Village Innovations after more than a decade working in women’s healthcare and seeing a quiet injustice repeated every day. As a clinician, I watched women brace themselves for pelvic exams, not because of fear, but because discomfort and poor visualization had been normalized. I saw missed pathology, rushed exams, and patients leaving unheard. It was clear the tools had not evolved alongside our understanding of women’s health. The turning point came when I realized that the discomfort women endured was not inevitable; it was a design failure. Providers were compensating for outdated tools, and patients were paying the price. I am building MVI because I understand this problem from both sides of the exam table. And now is the moment. Women’s health is finally being prioritized, clinicians are demanding better tools, and innovation is no longer optional. Rosa Spec™ exists because women deserve better care, and providers deserve better instruments to deliver it.
In her words
“The Vision: My Village Innovations I am obsessed with the invisible compromises in women’s healthcare.”
Chapter I
The toughest challenges you've faced as a founder.
The Climb: My Village Innovations Building a medical-device company in women’s health means pushing uphill on multiple fronts at once. As a woman founder in a space historically designed by and for men, I’ve had to justify not just the business—but the problem itself. I’ve been asked why discomfort is “worth solving,” why the market is “real,” and why women’s pain should command investment dollars. Access has been another barrier. I didn’t inherit a network of med-tech insiders or early capital. As a female founder and clinician, I built this company while balancing family, clinical work, and fundraising, often being the only woman in the room, and sometimes the only person who looked like me. Progress came through grit and creativity. We bootstrapped early development, validated the problem with clinicians nationwide, secured IP, and advanced Rosa Spec™ into manufacturing. We’ve won competitive pitch competitions, built a strong advisory bench, and raised early capital toward a $1.5M seed round. We are preparing for limited market release with clinical champions already lined up. The climb hasn’t been linear but momentum is real. We’re still here because the problem matters, the traction is undeniable, and we know exactly where we’re going.
Chapter II
Your vision.
The Vision: My Village Innovations I am obsessed with the invisible compromises in women’s healthcare. The moments when clinicians know they could do better, but the tools don’t allow it. I’m obsessed with how discomfort, poor visualization, and rushed exams have been normalized, and how that normalization quietly affects diagnosis, trust, and outcomes. My Village Innovations exists to remove those compromises. The change we are building is simple but profound: pelvic exams that work with the body instead of against it. Exams where providers see what they need to see the first time, and patients feel respected rather than endured. When tools improve, behavior changes. Exams become more thorough. Pathology is easier to identify. Patients are more willing to return for care. Our vision is a world where women don’t delay or avoid preventive care because of outdated design and where clinicians finally have instruments that reflect modern medicine, not decades-old assumptions.
Chapter III
The impact you want to leave behind — for your industry, your community, and the women who come next.
Legacy: My Village Innovations I want to leave behind a healthcare system that no longer asks women to tolerate discomfort as the price of care. If, 30 years from now, pelvic exams are more thorough, more humane, and more trusted because someone finally questioned “the way it’s always been done,” that will be enough. Beyond the product, I hope MVI proves that women can build category-defining medical technology without asking permission. That clinical insight, lived experience, and empathy belong at the center of innovation. If future founders move faster because this path was made more visible, and patients receive better care because standards quietly shifted, that’s the legacy worth building.