August 7th: Start-ups & Smoothies

Today we talked to people outside of healthcare for the first time. We first went to a company called Catalyzer. This company aims to help support startups, and they work out of this high tech very new looking space, with glass walls and colorful paintings all over done by local school children. The co-founders were incredible: he was a former yogi turned start-up entrepreneur, she had done multiple degrees in the US and now educated 25,000 students around the city.

Mural done by local students

We also met with a local doctor who had created a low cost diagnostic and treatment facility for kids with blood disorders to get free transfusions. Then? Oh they got us Dominoes Pizza. It was a bit different than the Dominoes we are used to in the US (more spice, no meat) but still a fun mix up to the normal curry and rice.

Drawings sent from students in the US to their pen pals in India

Then we went to meet with the consul general at the U.S. Embassy. The building was large and pink and looked very colonial. The CG was extremely nice- very supportive of our ideas and he had a lot of helpful insights on the trends in India.

Looking over city from the hospital

We then went to Apollo Hospital, one of the largest private hospital chains in the area. Our time there was a bit disjointed and I promised a neonatologist I would return Saturday morning to give a device demo. Because there is really nothing else I'd prefer to do on Saturday. In the morning. Our new wonderful tour guide, Divya, took us to her local gym. When I say gym, I really mean mini resort. We went to their cafe and ordered a bunch of smoothies.

Carmen and Akrita enjoying desserts at the cafe

After the relaxation time we jumped back in the van to visit a group nearby who focused on tech transfer. They calmly answered all of our silly questions about IP in India and fed us tea and cookies. With all of these meetings, we are averaging maybe 5 cups of tea a day. At least the caffeine serving sizes are much smaller here- their tea cups are the size of our espresso shots.