The new visionaries say, “Evolution is the only Constant”. Every person experience “Evolution” in his/her life events. Some pave the way to new & inspiring stories; some get in the way as motivating hurdles.
Good or Bad both shape your journey into a “Evolutionary being”. In today’s blog I am going to narrate my story about these inspirational experiences working and evolving with “My Indian Start-up”. A journey of a Start-up Intern to a Start-up Expert & Mentor.
It always feels like yesterday…. I had been working as a Researcher, as a visiting faculty with some eminent institutes and organisations in India, but always felt that pinch of passion missing in what I was doing. I loved to work on Research, write papers, give lectures but still something was missing….
“The Beginning as Intern”
In the year 2018, after a great vacation abroad, I was browsing through the net for some information related to New-age technology, reading information about how Artificial Intelligence and Technology was getting compiled with Modern Medicine, Nutrition, ect…I was curious to know how these techies create extremely user-friendly products and applications using the knowledge of different sciences into Apps
While doing so I got a pop-up message from Intern Shala- a popular job portal then, that a start-up named Atreya Innovations Pvt Ltd, is looking for a Nutrition Intern with an experience in Diet planning and many more Nutrition aspects…. I just got so excited because this was the same start-up, I had applied to some years back and never received any call. With my knowledge of Nutrition, Public Health, Research for over 10 years now, I was not an Intern post candidate…. still I thought what’s the harm in re-applying.
I just uploaded my CV, answered some very simple questions and just logged-out…. thinking maybe this time too, they will not contact me back. But to my surprise I got a call after a week for a face-to-face interview. I vividly remember driving for the first time till Hinjewadi Phase 1. The Atreya Innovations Pvt Ltd office was like a typical corporate Start-up atmosphere. Post a 1-2 hrs amazing interview and interactions, I was selected to work as an Intern. I was happy that I will be working with Dr Aniruddha Joshi our Founder & CEO and my favourite Ayurveda Guru Dr Tejaswini Bhale Borse. Atreya Innovations was the Start-up which was well-known in the market for its first ever Invention- Nadi Tarangini. After the great venture into Ayurveda driven AI tech platform, the Team was now venturing into Apps for the Health & Wellness users. This is what I was chosen for and my journey as an Intern began…
“Stepping up the Gears”
The year 2018-19 was unexpectedly fast, adventurous and learning. From Tie-Pune interaction to WACC’19 Ahmedabad experience the whole year went like an extremely fruitful, inspiring journey. We conducted some fantastic user-studies. We launched and worked on the apps like Spark, Lola and Pulsay. We even mentored budding SNDT Nutrition & Dietetics Graduates for our Pan-India study on understanding use of an App to Track Inner Health goals. It was a fabulous 2-month interaction with lot of training sessions, video consultations and report writing work.
“Work from Germany”
During the same year I shifted with my husband and daughter to Germany. It was a great opportunity and we thought this movement is essential for our family’s development. It was this time when Aniruddha and my entire Team supported me and I started to “work from home” from Germany. We managed the time-zone, work life balance and also our deliverables amazingly well. Today I can proudly say we also completed 2 User experience Phase Trails in Pan-India successfully, we also had our first ever User meet and experienced some Transformation journeys. It was a great achievement for all of us. All the users had followed our diet and lifestyle corrections and had benefitted a lot, and some till date follow the regimen. We became like 1 big Multi-country family in a short time.
“Envisioning a new domain.”
Slowly and steadily we also started writing Research Grants and Research papers to International and National Journals, work was going from a long distance in a great way. And one fine day the Pandemic hit…. It was the year of 2020, now it was not just me who was “working from home” but now the whole world was following the same.
Though the world was crashing on some people with Multimillion companies and agencies falling off and not able to bear the consequences of recession our little start-up was still patient enough and working up the ladder with our next big invention Turyaa. It was this time when we had lots of ups and downs, but we stood strong, unmoved and determined to keep working ahead. We started with working on building our product website, content, social media and marketing tactics and finally launched the Turyaa app and Turyaa device in the market. We had users not only in India, but we reached world-wide.
“Recognitions & Rewards”
With the success and reach of Turyaa, we continued writing our papers as well as Grant Proposals. During this time, we also got recognised as DSIR approved in house R&D facility and also bagged the prestigious “National Start-up award in 2021”. Honourable. PM. Shri Narendra Modi ji also mentioned the name of our start-up in Maan Ki Baat episode. It was like we were exploding with pride and happiness.
This year we also conducted a Pan-India Mental health & eating pattern study based on what we learned from the post-Pandemic effect. This was also successfully completed with the help of bright Nutritionist from different cities in India, they all were working professionals who happily participated and completed the study. Turyaa name reached many more homes and many more people learned about this “first-ever home diagnostic” Nadi Pariksha product.
“Writing ahead, moving ahead.”
Year 2022 brought back my eagerness to keep writing for some prestigious NITI-Aayog grants as well as NIHM & some European Grants. This was a very helpful and learning experience for me as along with my clinical work, I started to feel the need of building the Research domain of our start-up. This was possible only when we start our work by collecting more and more scientific data. Grants & Proposal schemes supporting work related to Clinical and technical co-relations in the domain of Ayurveda, Public Health & Data Science was the need of the time. Since I was staying in Germany, by attending some research conferences (virtually) I got some important tips and insights about how ideally one can write such proposals. Meanwhile the world was opening up again and we got the privilege to promote our Start-up work at the Viva Tech at Paris.
It was a great opportunity to be at the event and showcase our product, services along with India’s topmost start-ups in the India Pavilion and an opportunity to meet the key global start-up Tech giants like Google, Meta, etc. This opportunity proved that now there’s no looking back.
“Looking back, thinking ahead.”
Looking back, I can say that my journey with Atreya Innovations cannot be said or written as an individual’s story or journey. Just like our Indian family system, we like being in a large group our family, friends and relatives all are equally close in all our life events, so is my feeling for the bond I share with this Indian Start-up. Always connecting, forever bonding and just keep moving. This is where my “Evolution & passion coming together, making My Indian Start-up Story”!!!
Author: Mrs. Shruti Prashant Kulkarni
B.Sc. (Foods & Nutrition), M.Sc. (Public Health)
Clinical Nutritionist, Diabetes Educator & Counsellor, Ph.D. scholar
Research & Product Domain Expert (Atreya Innovations Pvt Ltd)
Chief Nutrition Counsellor (Germany)