Xpress-D/T

I have over 20 years of experience in the IT industry dealing with Fortune & Global 2000 clients for Sales, business consultancy, Post-sale transitions/technical implementations. I have expertise in researching new ideas, developing ideas to market facing propositions, growing them to become business-lines & creating teams for execution. I have been a part-of/led several such exploratory/startup opportunities. Few salient ones listed below:

  - Member of the Global Exploration Team to explore new business areas for the company to venture into.

 - Member of the team which conceptualized a business which is now generating over USD 4 Billion Revenues annually.

-  Founder Member of a business line generating over USD 700 mill annually.

I have played several key roles and effectively guided teams across:

- Idea conceptualization/creating technical propositions, business plans

- Customer/Analyst Advisory presentations

- Heading large technology transitions, team creation

- Partner/Vendor ecosystems 

1. Problem Description -In times of pandemic situations (like the current one) & otherwise; in addition to ensuring safety & security of near & dear ones; as Governments/medical institutions; it becomes imperative to ensure everyone gets adequately tested; so as to avoid infection spread. Governments are committed to testing but due to large populations who require testing; don't have enough kits/procedures(which are faster, accurate & cater to remote areas). 

2. Proposed Solution - The proposed solution makes use of AI algorithms in battery operated devices to test samples of potentially affected people for a number of infectious diseases including Covid19. The testing becomes agile thereby ensuring that most of the population gets tested in a relatively shorter time period, from there homes & is also cost effective.

3. If Scaled Globally - Faster Testing times (few hours as compared to days), comfort of home, early medication start, less disease spread.      

1. The problem being addressed is around speeding up the detection of infectious diseases (like Malaria, Dengue, Covid19, etc) using AI algorithms for earlier treatment and preventing disease spread.

2. Scale of Problem (globally):

a. World Malaria Report - Nov 2018 -> 219 million malaria cases in 2017, up 2 million from 2016. The estimated deaths at 435000 in 2017. 

b. WHO Covid19 Dashboard - May 27, 2020 -> 5491678 confirmed cases, 349190 deaths. 

c. WHO Dengue & Severe Dengue - March 2, 2020 -> The number of dengue cases reported to WHO increased over 15 fold over the last 2 decades from 505430 cases in 2000 to over 3312040 in 2015. Estimated deaths from 2000 to 2015 increased from 960 to more than 4032.  

The factors relating to my solution (and an ideal solution) are around being agile and being accurate with limited manpower.  

To help address the problem mentioned in above point:

- The solution is a set of AI models which using deep learning process (and using available clinical data sets) gets trained and is able to identify the infectious disease parasites (malaria, Covid19, Dengue, etc) present within the body (blood smear, X-Ray, etc). If the parasite is not present then it concludes that the person is uninfected. If the parasite is present then it concludes that the person is infected; in which case the appropriate treatment needs to start. 

- The AI models once trained would be faster (as compared to human beings) and can do the job with a margin of error. Once trained properly - It also would minimise the occurence of human error which might become prevalent in pandemic kind of situations.    

- For such a model couple of parameters are of utmost importance – accuracy, size and portability. The aim of this model is to keep the same accuracy level as is being currently achieved, a smaller and computationally more efficient model and one which can be deployed easily to the edge and IOT things to help the solution reach remote areas.

1. The target population in this case (whose lives could improve through this solution) can be first responders and communities affected by:

- Infectious disease like malaria, Dengue, Covid19, etc

- These members could reside in urban or rural/remote regions of Nigeria, Congo, Mozambique, India, Uganda, etc. 

 2. For various infectious disease kind of situations - containing disease spread, diagnosis and faster medication start is the need of the hour. The solution caters to such needs of the people in the following ways:

- To detect the disease in a faster manner (in a few hours as compared to days currently) so that it can be confined and does not spread.

- Once detected  - Appropriate medication can start as soon as possible. 

3. Currently the solution is in the prototype stage. The above category of people are not directly benefitting from these solutions as there is a need to educate such masses about the existence of such a technology. Once educated & when this gets rolled out - this will benefit people's lives by providing them with:

- faster diagnosis (from comfort of there home)

- cost effective

- faster medication start

thereby also helping confine the disease spread

The problem, solution & target population which i have described above are well-aligned to the challenge. 

While the challenge is around Covid19 (an infectious disease which has nowbecome a pandemic); there are other infectious diseases (like Malaria, dengue, etc) too which fitsin this category (not really pandemics but are big killers - infection & death statistics given above). All these diseases if not detected, contained & treated faster have the potential to become pandemics. 

The solution whichis talked about uses AI models to combine agility alongwith accuracy which are 2 ofthe most important parameters (inmy opinion) to help diagnose/contain spread. 

1. The idea for this project began about an year back but got strengthened withthe current pandemic as the solution caters to parameters like speed,accuracy and reachability whichare essential ina pandemic 

2. The solution is agile/fast as one canget results in just about 5/10 minutes as compared to probably 3-4 days (depending on diseasetype being diagnosed)that too is dependant on good &skilled technicians being available and ones who are not overloaded. Today, if we see all around us our doctors, nurses, technicians are all overloaded because of infection spread; to top it they are expected to work 24x7. Human body is designed to operate upto a certain limit after which human errors starts. The solution helps medical practitioners get a small breather from their work and would be able to cater to the growing medical demands especially during pandemic times. 

3. During infectious disease breakout or pandemic kind of situations - there is a shortage of trained technicians (at least in remote locations). My solution (once trained properly) can effectively act as 1st line of defence and cater to population which might not be tested (or tested very late) due to the non availability of skilled and trained technicians. 

Would like to begin this answer by mentioning that even after 20 years of working - I believe I am still a learner and get fascinated by technology and its usage. The specific problem is important to me as:

1. It makes use my knowledge and experience with technology (Artificial Intelligence, IOT in this case). If implemented at a global scale it will help people immensely - medical practitioners, general masses, etc.  

2. It helps masses as it speeds up the disease detection process; something which is very essential during pandemic times.    

3. I have been associated with startups all through my career - researching a new business idea and then growing that idea to become a full fledged business line is something that I have been doing almost all through my professional life. The current proposition around disease detection and diagnosis in an agile manner is something which goes very well with what I have done all throughout. Hence if I am able to grow this proposition to something sustainable is motivation enough for me. 

4. Besides if with this - I can help humanity sail through a difficult time-period; would consider this solution and my existence worth. 

1. Ready Prototype  

2. Ready GTM -  60 month plan  

3. My network consists of a vast number of individuals and organizations who can step in & help.

4. I believe my past experience, experience of my network/colleagues, supported by Solve teams will be enough to propel this prototype to a sizeable business venture going forward. 

A brief about my profile, skills & achievements is listed below:

I have over 20 years of experience in the IT industry dealing with Fortune & Global 2000 clients for Sales, business consultancy, Post-sale transitions/technical implementations. I have expertise in researching new ideas, developing ideas to market facing propositions, growing them to become business-lines & creating teams for execution. I have been a part-of/led several such exploratory opportunities. Few salient ones listed below:

  - Member of the Global Exploration Team to explore new business areas for the company to venture into.

 - Member of the team which conceptualized a business which is now generating over USD 4 Billion Revenues annually.

-  Founder Member of a business line generating over USD 700 mill annually.

I have played several key roles and effectively guided teams across:

- Idea conceptualization/creating technical propositions, business plans

- Customer/Analyst Advisory presentations

- Heading large technology transitions, team creation

- Partner/Vendor ecosystems 

I have a small team who is helping me with this. These people have similar background as me. Together we are capable of taking this forward towards a more commercial kind of establishment. 

In solutions involving Artificial Intelligence - for you to get accurate results you need reliable data sources & sets for your algorithms to get trained on. If your data set is not appropriate your algorithm will produce erroneous results. 

The examples of infectious diseases that I have tried to address - it was not really easy to get a reliable dataset in the first place. I had to consult a lot of sites, my connects for reliable data sets and also take inputs from my friends in the medical industry around efficacy of those data sets as well as their comfort in using such a solution (if and when it gets created). This to me was a difficult task from 2 aspects - firstly collecting data sets 7 checking their efficacy; secondly changing the mindset of my connects (from traditional models of practising medicine to probably a more advanced model - making use of Artificial Intelligence). 

I overcame this by educating my connects on how the algorithm uses AI and by exposing them to datasets. This helped me build trust with them as they were aware at all times with what was going on in the project.     

Like I mentioned earlier - my speciality is around identifying an idea, researching it and then making it grow to a full fledged business. My past experiences (inspite of being in a regular job) have been around identifying an idea and backing it till it becomes a financially independent and self sustaining business (kind of growing a start up). I have been associated with several such initiatives - 2 of which are highlighted below for reference. 

1. Founder Member of the team which conceptualized a business which is now generating over USD 4 Billion Revenues annually from scratch.

2. Founder Member of another business line generating over USD 800 million revenues annually from scratch.