Meet our Mentors for Covid-Care@Home Innovation Challenge

COVID-19 has disrupted healthcare service delivery and has devastated communities across India. The George Institute for Global Health, India Health Accelerator Programme is hosting an innovation challenge “Covid-Care@Home for developing and identifying solutions that will support effective home-based care for COVID-19 to support families and communities in rural areas.

From among 150 applications, 30 start-ups have been shortlisted for mentorship. We have created a pool of mentors with health domain expertise for providing guidance to the shortlisted start-ups.

Our mentors are:

	Prof Anushka Patel, Vice-Principal Director & Chief Scientist, The George Institute for Global Health – Anushka is a practicing cardiologist and has extensive experience in clinical trials, drug development and mHealth applications.
	Tina Purnat, Principal Expert in eHealth and Digital Innovations, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) - She has worked at the intersection of health research, analysis, and policymaking with an emphasis on digital health and health information systems. As part of the WHO COVID-19 response, she worked in developing and formulating WHO infodemic response and infodemic management interventions, for which she received the WHO Pathfinder and Innovation Award 2021.
	Piyush Bhan, Vice President & General Manager, Salucro – He has experience of over 11 years working in scaling up start-ups in healthcare and fintech. Piyush has played a pivotal role in creating product-market fit and strategizing the launch and business in different geographies.
	Dr Ragini N Mohanty, Professor and VP (Emerging Technologies), Prin. L. N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research – She is a passionate practitioner of design thinking with an innovative mindset and has the ability to relate with applications of engineering and technology to the healthcare domain. She brings with her two decades of experience and focuses on coaching and mentoring young minds to help them explore their full potential in self-awareness and development.
	Prof Anurag Mishra, Professor, Maulana Azad Medical College – He is a surgeon and is working as Professor at Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi. He has keen interest in Research, Public Health, Global Surgery, Low Resource health care, Frugal Innovation and Collaborative works.
	Dr Candice Delcourt, Senior research fellow, The George Institute for Global Health – He is a clinician researcher with clinical expertise developed in Australia, and in Europe. She practices clinical neurology in Sydney and in rural New South Wales. She leads the neurology research program at The George Institute. She has a strong research interest in stroke with a PhD in stroke imaging and more than 10 years of experience in stroke research.
	Abby Abraham, Global Head of Data Science, George Clinical – He is a progressive clinical research professional passionate about altering the existing healthcare and research paradigm by bringing together engaged people, novel technologies, and smart processes. Abby is a result-oriented professional with over 21 years of experience in the clinical research industry and has worked with top global CROs in his career.
	Dr. Shibu Vijayan, Global TB Technical Director, PATH – Shibu has over 25 years’ experience of working across the complete spectrum of Public Health Services from Primary care through teaching hospitals and Ministry of Health. His expertise revolves around designing and deploying private sector engagement innovations for Urban Health System, specifically pertaining to lung diseases (Tuberculosis), Artificial intelligence augmented digital triaging systems, new diagnostics for TB and COVID 19.
	Dr. Ateeb Ahmad Parray, Assistant Research Coordinator, James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University - Ateeb is a public health professional with technical grounding in use of social sciences approaches in humanitarian contexts. He has around five years of experience working in the areas of gender, sexual and reproductive health, intersectionality, and health systems strengthening. He serves as the co-chair of Health System Global's SHAPES technical working group and Country Director of STAR Bangladesh.
	Prof. Madhavilatha Maganti, Ashoka University - Maganti has a background in Developmental Psychology with a concentration in infancy & early childhood development and post-doctoral specialization in Developmental Cognitive Science. Her research interests are focused on understanding patterns of cognitive, language and socio-emotional development in infants and children aged birth to six years.
	Bharat Gera, Founder, Human Centric Health Ecosystem - Independent Consultant – Bharat has over two decades of experience in healthcare IT, played role in ecosystem as an entrepreneur, consultant, and CIO of a leading teaching hospital. He has been recognized as ‘CIO of the Year’ by CXO Media, been the jury for NASSCOM Emerge50, mentor for MIT-USA COVID Hackathon and delivered several talks on telemedicine applications for India.
	Vimal Desai, Sr. Clinical Research Associate, George Clinical, India – Vimal has over one decade of experience, he has expertise in the areas of Clinical Research. He is currently working with George Clinical India as a Sr. Clinical Research Associate.
	Deeksha Senguttuvan, Head of Digital Transformation, Kauvery Hospital - Deeksha leads technology adoption in the hospital / healthcare ecosystem, thereby improving access to affordable healthcare. In her five-year stint, she has gained varied perspectives across multiple industries ( Telecom, Healthcare, E-Commerce, Utility Services, Manufacturing & Construction) and domains (B2B Marketing, Product Management, Business Development, Project Management & Strategy).
	Dr Abhijeet Waghmare, Manager - Medical Informatics and Innovations, St. Johns Research Institute – Abhijeet has more than a decade of experience in using technology to solve problems in rural and urban healthcare settings and implementing Electronic Health Records.
	Dr Chinta Venkata Rama Krishna, Nephrologist , Managing Director, Vedanta Hospitals - He is an executive council member of Andhra Pradesh Society of Nephrology is a professional body for Nephrologists and has numerous publications in indexed renal journals. He is passionate about chronic disease management care using health care ICT, especially in chronic kidney disease, dialysis, and transplant care delivery.
	Dr Yachna Mehta, Project Manager, The George Institute for Global Health – He is a clinician and a passionate medical researcher with over 8 years of experience of working across various Obstetrics, Gynaecology, Nephrology and Oncology clinical trials. He was the youngest presentee at the FIGO World Congress in 2015 and one of the top 500 abstracts in the RGOG Congress in 2016.
	Dr Philip Mathew, Consultant Intensivist, Deputy Director (Innovations), Believers Church Medical College Hospital Thiruvalla Kerala – Dr Mathew is an Advisor and Mentor in domains of Healthcare startups, Clinical development, Risk management, validation and academic research.
	Prof (Dr) Sudhir Kumar Satpathy, Director, KSPH, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) – He has a distinguished professional career of 40 years mainly serving developing countries like India and Nigeria. He has worked under Govt. of India, International agencies, NGOs, and private sector. His expertise is in the fields of capacity building, education and research, health program management, health systems, communicable diseases, and RCHs.