Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: CareJourney CEO and President Obama’s CTO Aneesh Chopra (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: The innovation engine of the country also applies to the middle layer, right?

Aneesh Chopra: Now it will be. Earlier in the Obama administration, we launched an initiative called Startup America. You could imagine that you’re building Startup Global is to drive more entrepreneurs into the economy.

As we know, startups have been the engine of net new job creation. When we explore what makes the entrepreneur story work in America, a researcher at Stanford provided the much needed clarity that when the rules of the road of a particular industry change, it’s the entrepreneur who can get there faster because there’s an economic return on a new way.

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Sangeeta (San) Banerjee is the Co-founder and CEO of ADDA, formerly ApartmentADDA.com, an Indian web application company. She talks about her entrepreneurial journey as a bootstrapped entrepreneur tackling heavily funded competitors. She holds a degree in electrical engineering from Guindy and earned her master’s from Louisiana State University. Prior to founding ApartmentADDA, she worked for Tata Consultancy Services from 1999 to 2003 and then went on to postgraduate education. After graduating from Louisiana State University she worked for Capgemini in Chicago for a year before returning to India to work for SAP India.

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: CareJourney CEO and President Obama’s CTO Aneesh Chopra (Part 1)

Aneesh offers a thoughtful and comprehensive analysis and vision of the innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities throughout the healthcare system. Fascinating conversation.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do a little intro and get some background. I know you have a very colorful background.

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Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background did you have?

Steven Job: I was born in Buffalo, New York in 1976. I stayed there during my undergraduate studies. I studied computer science. Throughout that time, my parents always had a business. When you become an entrepreneur, you have to figure out the reasons to become one. Most people do it because their parents had a business or there was something in their life that motivated them. 

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Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Workiz CEO Didi Azaria (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me more about Workiz that drew you into this as your next step. You’ve got substantial experience. To apply that experience to another problem, this must be a very interesting problem.

Didi Azaria: When I was 22, I was a locksmith for six months. I’m not such a great locksmith, but I do understand the opportunities and challenges in this area. I was a locksmith when GPS didn’t exist. There were no cellphones back in the day.