COPA sikka.ai User Group
Cyber Security, Optimization, Payments & AI

Vijay Sikka is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sikka Software Corporation. Under his leadership, Sikka Software has grown from a start-up to have over 35,000 practice installations and 120m patients on its platform for healthcare on the demand side and over 50 companies which have built applications on the supply side. Prior to Sikka Software, Vijay has worked in Artificial Intelligence and decision systems for more than 25 years of experience with large scale projects at Intel Corporation, National Institutes of Health, Glaxo Smith Kline, Roche and UCSF affiliates. In 1996, Vijay founded IBrain Software, Inc. that used to compete with Informatica, Hyperion and Cognos and served as its CEO until its acquisition in 1998 by Entigen Corporation, a healthcare information company that later became part of Roche. After that Vijay co-founded Bodha.com that was acquired by Peregrine Systems/Remedy that later became part of BMC Software. Vijay holds an M.S. degree in EE and AI from Syracuse University, New York, pursued doctoral studies in neurosciences at Stanford University (incomplete Ph.D), and is a Registered Continuing Education Provider in California. He is a frequent speaker at big data, AI, healthcare, technology and quality meetings. Vijay’s book on Maximizing ROI on Software Development was published by Taylor and Francis International and earns him a proud royalty check every few months.

Vijay was invited keynote speaker at the Digital Health World Conferences in 2019 and 2020, AI Global Forum 2020 and Biohacking Congress in London in 2020. He has published and presented in many artificial intelligence and neural network meetings and conferences including International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, SPIE, IEEE, AAAI and CHMT and the precursor of NeurIPS.

Nick is passionate about helping companies achieve their goals through strategic leadership, customer experience, and operational excellence. With over 17 years of experience in the dental industry, Nick has a proven track record of success in leading teams, driving growth, and improving profitability.

In his previous role as COO at Chrisad, Nick led a team of 70+ employees and oversaw all aspects of business operations. He successfully drove 13 years of financial and operational growth, mentored all sales and operations teams, and built sales processes and systems that resulted in increased revenue and stellar client engagement.

Nick is also an expert in developing and managing key customer relationships to ensure the results of our partnership are effective and impactful.

In his spare time, Nick enjoys spending time with his family, coaching and playing baseball and traveling.

Venesa Lewis has over 30 years of dental industry experience. Throughout her career, she has worked with both private and capitation practice management groups. Her various duties have given her the knowledge to understand and support dental practices by working with doctors and teams to implement innovative operational solutions that eliminate inefficiencies and improve practice bottom-line performance. Ms. Lewis has specialized in turnaround situations in which she identified practice problems and implemented corrective strategies.

Aleksey is an accomplished entrepreneur in the payments industry with over 14 years of experience. Starting his journey in his early 20s, Aleksey has built a strong reputation for innovation and success in financial technology.

Throughout his career, Aleksey has founded multiple companies, working directly with major acquirers like Fiserv and TSYS. His ventures have processed billions of dollars for thousands of merchants, showcasing his ability to create and scale effective payment solutions.

Aleksey’s expertise spans the entire lifecycle of fintech businesses, from startup to successful exit. He has achieved multiple exits, demonstrating his skill in building valuable companies in the payments sector.

Currently, Aleksey is the founder of Nadapayments, a company that's changing the game in credit card processing. Nadapayments specializes in cutting the cost of accepting credit cards by up to 80%, while offering practice owners a simple, streamlined way to handle payments.

With a deep understanding of both payments and cybersecurity, Aleksey is well-equipped to address the challenges faced by modern businesses, particularly in specialized fields like dentistry. He combines practical know-how with innovative strategies to help businesses improve their financial operations while maintaining high security standards.

Ryan Corby is a dynamic entrepreneur with extensive experience in the dental industry, currently serving as the Managing Partner at Smile Advantage and the CEO of Retain & Smile. With a passion for business that began at a young age, Ryan has developed a strong expertise in marketing automation, software solutions, and customer service. His work focuses on enhancing dental practices through innovative membership programs and streamlined marketing strategies, helping practices improve patient engagement and revenue generation.

In his roles, Ryan leverages his deep understanding of technology to implement effective solutions that address the unique needs of dental practices. His commitment to personalized service and follow-up exemplifies his approach to client relationships, ensuring that each practice receives tailored support. Additionally, Ryan is passionate about team development, recognizing that nurturing talent and fostering collaboration are critical to driving success. With a proven track record of growth and innovation, Ryan continues to be a leader in transforming how dental practices operate and connect with their patients.

Joel is a senior executive with broad experience in the financial services industry. Skilled in operations management, product development, customer experience and building high performing teams. Joel has been at TSI over 9 years and previously worked in Capital Markets with Royal Bank of Canada and TD Bank.

Over the past decade, Tanner Applegate has built and operated multiple award-winning dental office operations across multiple locations. His success stems from his experience and passion for leveraging technology to simplify processes. Tanner has spoken on numerous stages about how he and his teams have utilized technology securely to achieve efficiencies and automation rarely seen in the dental industry.

During his time in dentistry, Tanner realized that isolated systems within the tech stack were causing increased expenses and decreased revenue for his companies.

Determined to solve this problem, Tanner founded Unify in April 2022. Unify's mission is to enable legacy industries with disconnected tech stacks to automate and streamline workflows across their applications—no APIs, no coding, no problem. By making process optimization and automation accessible to all, Unify aims to ease the frustration of "Oh no... not ANOTHER software!" a thing of the past.

With 18 years of experience in the dental industry, Maria Comitto has a strong focus on using technology to improve operational workflows and enhance efficiency in every division of a dental business. Her expertise in building successful Dental Service Organizations (DSOs) and dealing with the challenges of fragmented systems led to the development of My Business Platform (MBP). Maria is dedicated to innovation and excellence, creating a comprehensive platform that integrates Human Resources, Financial Management, Strategic Marketing, and Practice Reporting, driving sustainable growth and long-term success for dental practices.

Steve Poley is the founder of RingIQ.ai that helps healthcare providers answer the phone. RingIQ has helped answer more than 300,000 patient phone calls with AI intelligence. Today, RingIQ.ai provides healthcare providers with AI call assistants that answer the phone fluently, with intelligence, and effectiveness.

On average, doctors miss 20% of patient phone calls and RingIQ knows half will not call back. The data also indicates 80% of the missed calls are during business hours. RingIQ.ai call assistant answers the phone 24/7, after hours, weekends, and holidays with all the intelligence available in your practice management program, your website, and your own business practices.

Steve started working with doctors after a difficult time booking an exam. There has to be a better way than making call-after-call to book an appointment. Steve was the first person to offer healthcare providers an online real-time appointment schedule tool. Steve helped doctors see more patients and then realized doctors need more help answering the phone then making the phone ring.

Steve's company, RingIQ.ai, provides retail healthcare providers the AI tools to answer the phone, improve appointment bookings, help with patient's service requests, is HIPAA compliant, and reduces missed calls. Steve is a veteran marketing leader building and marketing businesses at P&G, Coca-Cola, Shell Energy, and Miller Beer.

Steve lives in Houston, Texas with his family and business associates.

Supervisory Special Agent Scott Hellman has spent over 16 years investigating criminal and national security cybercrime with the FBI. Currently, Scott leads a team of cybercrime investigators in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they seek to build community through outreach, and disrupt cybercriminals and the services they depend on. He holds a J.D. and a Bachelor's in chemistry.

Barry has over 25+ years in the US consumer finance space and dental industry scaling businesses for success by monetizing strategic opportunities. Barry is a strategic growth leader who delivers exceptional returns that create business value.

Barry’s senior leadership experience spans across fortune 100 companies and entrepreneurial enterprises. The majority of Barry’s career has been assigned to senior and C level roles with GE Capital/Synchrony, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo as well as leadership in the healthcare space (dental) with DenMat Holdings.

Jason has spent his career fusing technology and strategy across startups to fortune 500 companies, and now at the fast-growing eAssist Dental Solutions which has won the Inc 5000 growth award 7 years in a row and is the market leader in RCM services. Applying technology to business happened immediately after he obtained his Electrical Engineering degree as he became a subject matter expert on Motorola’s wireless security services team - “hacking” into networks worldwide, or sometimes domestically from the parking lot. While attending Harvard Business School for his MBA he co-founded a disruptive wireless internet service provider, netBlazr, which continues today as Boston's highest-rated internet. He was later appointed as a Senior Fellow at Clayton Christensen's HBS Forum for Growth and Innovation where he focused on effective leadership at the board level and contributed to the best selling book “How Will You Measure Your Life”. He later led the NetClarity Network Access Control product line toward its acquisition by KEYW Corp while repositioning and launching it as a SaaS product. Currently at eAssist Dental Solutions, he serves as their Chief Technology Officer where he believes that technology coupled with skilled and driven people are the real solution to the challenges we face as a dental industry.

Dr. Vinni K. Singh, DDS, AFAAID, is the CEO of DentScribe and owns a successful private practice in San Jose, CA. She graduated from the University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry and earned an dental implant certificate from Loma Linda University. Dr. Singh's dedication to diversity and leadership in the dental community is evident through her selection for the American Dental Association's Institute for Diversity in Leadership academy and her role as Associate Dental Director for a federally qualified health center. As a Kois-trained dentist and Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Implant Dentistry, she actively participates in the Seattle Study Club and the Kois Study Club in San Francisco. Dr. Singh has spoken at numerous prestigious conferences, sharing her expertise on dental innovations, leadership, and practice management. Her passion for integrating advanced technologies into dental practice management positions her as a thought leader, helping dental professionals achieve excellence in patient care and operations.

Sarah Anders is Senior Director, Global Strategic Partnerships and DSO Channel at Align Technology.

Sarah has more than 25 years of dental industry experience holding senior leadership positions in sales, marketing, continuing education, and operations with major digital dental technology and dental materials manufacturers. Currently, she has an expanded global responsibility focused on the iTero Intraoral Scanner.

Ms. Anders has a track record of success being recognized within the industry as one of the Top 25 Women in Dentistry by Dental Products Report. She has lectured and presented training programs internationally for the past 20 years and has been an active member of industry association boards including Dental Trade Alliance Board and the National Association of Dental Laboratories Board of Directors.

Ms. Anders received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Biochemistry from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and graduated from Penn State University with her Master’s in Business Administration.

Brian is a marketing professional passionate about helping companies drive growth through strategic marketing initiatives. With an eye for design and a penchant for analytics, Brian sits at the crossroads of creativity and data to construct essential marketing strategies and meaningful content.

As the current Marketing Lead at sikka.ai, Brian draws upon his background as a content and product marketer and his affinity for technology to drive company growth. Brian excels at working cross-functionally with product, engineering, sales, and operational teams in order to create strategies that increase growth and bring in revenue.

In his free time, Brian enjoys cooking, watching a plethora of sports, and staying active through swimming and training.

Andrew is a Product Management Leader with an affinity for helping companies and their customers succeed by creating engaging, effective solutions that allow users to achieve their goals. With a background in Product Design, Andrew is constantly seeking out areas of opportunity to enhance Sikka’s formidable product line and drive innovation.

Outside of work Andrew enjoys watching motorsports, growing carnivorous plants, art, and spending time with his family.