Hangout with Successful Startup Founder

Dr. Pankaj Parashar

MHRD IIC

Date – 04-05-2020

Time 3:00 pm

Dr. Pankaj Parashar carries an experience of looking at healthcare industry from close corners and
different capacities for more than last 17 years. He is a rare academic combination; he is a qualified
physician with an MBBS degree and for his passion for medical technology, he is also pursuing his
PhD in Biomedical Engineering from IIT Delhi, and is in his last phase of research. Apart from this he
is a serial innovator and a passionate entrepreneur. He has developed many innovative affordable
medical devices for the mass healthcare. His previous innovation was a telemedicine product that
was awarded at IIM Ahmadabad as among the most innovative product for 2008. It was searched by
the CIIE – IIM A team from the patent applications published in the patent office gazette. He has a
good experience of failing in ventures; his previous venture could not see the light of the day beyond
the proof of concept. He understands failure very well and also what all need not to be done to fail
again. He has put 17 years of his life into innovation and entrepreneurship now with his insane
perseverance he has started tasting the sweet taste of success. He is presently working on a Smart
point of care diagnostic device for a quantitative urinary micro protein (proteins in micro quantities
as an early diagnosis of kidney disease in patients with diabetes, Hypertension and high-risk
pregnancies) estimation which was not possible till now at Point of Care with accuracy. He is a
person dedicated to healthcare technology research and development following his heart he is
traversing the uncharted lands of innovation and entrepreneurship with an aim to create affordable
yet accurate medical devices, “Made in India” for the masses and the world.

The speaker starts the session with defining entrepreneurship and entrepreneur. He says for
many it’s a dream, and for others desire, and for few it’s an aim or target to achieve. When we hear
to the term entrepreneur we get great personalities such as Steve Jobs, Thomas Elva Edison,
Ambani, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg into our sub conscious because they have a remarkable
impression in the field. “Entrepreneurship is a roller coaster” says the speaker. Getting into it is an
easy task but getting safely off it is a very difficult but not impossible job. He says a company is
known by its products. For example, ALPHABET IS KNOWN BY GOOGLE, APPLE IS KNOWN BY
IPHONES, ETC., Every product has got its own identity in the market. So the speaker defines product
as the result of an action or process. The product may be manufactured or refined. Then the speaker
heads to talk about peculiar characteristics of the product. Then the design aspects are discussed.
How to create a unique design to attract customers but also providing comfortable design and user
friendly options. Not only on design aspects but we also have to focus on utility of the product. If the
product is not achieving its function, then customers won’t be accepting the proposal. Other aspects
like safety and unique selling preposition and also aligning with company motto should be
considered while designing a product. Next come prototype models for accomplishing our aim.
There are many ways to get a porotype model in today’s life. There are 3-D printers and 3-D pens to
achieve the same. Every entrepreneur may fail many times before succeeding but patience helps to
achieve success. Also, failure always teaches us a way in which we should not work out the product.