A one-day summit on ‘Low-cost diagnostics for affordable healthcare’ was organized by Wadhwani Research Centre for Bioengineering (WRCB), IIT Bombay, on 3rd June 2022. The goal of the event was to create opportunities to brainstorm with different stakeholders involved in the development of low-cost diagnostics solutions. The event was co-sponsored by Wadhwani Electronics Lab (WEL) and Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE). The event saw the participation of more than 150 people including innovators, industry experts, entrepreneurs, academicians, and representatives from government and non-profit organizations.
Image Gallery: the Speakers
The summit featured talks by 10 renowned professionals Dr. Debojyoti Chakraborty (Senior Scientist, CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology), Dr. Arindam Ray (India country lead, New vaccines, and immunization systems, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Prof. Ravikrishnan Elangovan (Professor, IIT Delhi), Mr. Rishabh Chopra (Lead strategy and partnerships, PATH India), Prof. Mudrika Khandelwal (Associate professor, IIT Hyderabad), Mr. Anurag Meena (Co-Founder, NeoDocs), Dr. Satya Dash (Founding CEO BITS BioCyTiH foundation), Dr. Savita Ayyar (Founder, Jaquaranda Tree), Prof. Swaroop Ganguly (Professor-in-charge, IIT Bombay Research Park), Mr. Rakesh Rajiv (SINE) and Dr. Anirvan Chatterjee (Founder Haystacks Analytics).
Image Gallery: the Event
The summit provided a platform where representatives from academia and industry exchanged their perspectives. The academicians discussed their past and ongoing translational research in their research lab. The entrepreneurs discussed their transitional experiences of taking their products from lab to market. Leaders from several foundations and industries provided insights into challenges in starting and establishing entrepreneurial ventures and how one can learn from the stories of successful ventures. The audience also got to hear about the brief history of entrepreneurship at IIT Bombay and SINE’s role in providing the right ecosystem to start-ups. The talk on WRCB’s funding support for research and innovation was informative and appreciated by many. The panel discussion on “bottlenecks and potential solutions to translational innovation in low-cost diagnostics” was insightful and inspiring especially to the prospective entrepreneurs.
The event was attended by representatives from 30+ industrial establishments such as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH Foundation, BITS BioCyTiH Foundation, Siemens Healthineers, Social Alpha, AyurAI, Dr. Reddy’s Lab, Haystack Analytics, DataSherpa, BSV Ltd., Accurex Biomedical, Neodocs, Metropolis Healthcare Ltd., Geneaccurex Pvt. Ltd., Seloi Healthcare, Pacify Medical Technologies Private Ltd., Techinvention Lifecare, Iota Design & Innovations Lab Pvt. Ltd., Happy Life, Bigtec Labs and many more. The poster session provided ample opportunities to network with and gain from the experience of experts in the domain area.
WRCB aims to be a translational ecosystem in bioengineering by funding technical innovations and supporting these innovations to be launched outside the lab. The event resonated with the objectives of WRCB. Knowledge-sharing, joint ideas, and mentorship through industry-academia interaction and collaboration is key to the successful translation of innovations. As envisioned, the summit provided a successful networking platform for academicians and industries. We look forward to another successful event soon.
