In the history of humanity, innovations in health stand at the top of the impressive list of collective endeavors that have improved our lives. Over the last two centuries, the arc of advances in health has been bending upwards, but the pace of change has been especially dramatic in recent decades, driven partly by the exponential increase in the tools available to us. We are not quite done yet, either. In fact, we may be embarking upon a new, impressive phase of innovation in healthcare.

The benefit of this progress has been very evident: diseases that would kill millions until only a few decades ago can now be prevented with things as simple as the pop of a pill, or a prick from a needle.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made this more obvious than ever before. As an invisible enemy devoured millions of lives throughout the globe, the whole world stood together in breathless anticipation and watched the fields of health and technology, hoping they would create a solution for this unprecedented humanitarian crisis. And these fields delivered – they created innovative solutions to the pandemic on an equally unprecedented speed and scale. This has brought us to a very unique point in history where more people are looking at health technologies – from diagnostics to vaccines – with a genuine interest and admiration than they had ever shown before. 

This puts forward a rather interesting question in front of us: do the people who receive the benefits of modern health technology innovations truly understand the processes and the stories behind them? After all, it is not just a random stroke of luck that allows our innovators to create miracles. The path to success, instead, is paved with many, many failures, seemingly insurmountable hurdles, countless sacrifices, and sometimes even profound loss. Unfortunately, the public does not always get to see this aspect of an innovator’s journey, making them think of health technologies as magic that was conjured by men and women in laboratories or as voodoo science to be feared, depending on your belief and training in science. 

This book “Reimagining Health: Inspiring Stories of Innovators at the Intersection of Health and Technology” is our modest effort to make these stories a little more accessible to all of us. It is a glimpse inside the enigmatic minds of healthcare innovators so that the readers, too, can not only understand the sheer brilliance and marvels of modern day medicine and technology but also experience how difficult, yet rewarding, it is to create solutions to make our world a healthier place. We wish to make people aware of the incredible journeys of our innovators right from the initial inspiration that got them started to the point where these innovations make tangible impacts in the lives of people. We wish to show the hard, gritty realities as well as the beautiful moments of aha! that a changemaker experiences. The book, in this sense, is a celebration of the ups and the downs in our endeavors of bringing about life-changing health technology innovations. It is also a humble attempt to bring the human faces behind these innovations, so we can bridge gaps in understanding science through compassion, empathy, and communication. 

Most importantly, we hope to use our collective voice to inspire a whole new generation of scientists, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, changemakers and students from all walks of life who have the potential to drive humanity into the future. So we welcome you to this beautiful journey. Join us as we listen to these exciting stories of some incredible people who dared to change our world. Be a part of the movement, reimagine health with us, and explore the innovator within you.

Sincerely, 

Anurag & Sonali