Harpreet Singh & Ravneet Kaur — iNICU
Adversity strikes. Two choices: give up or fight back. For Harpreet Singh and Ravneet Kaur the first is not an option. They have used their software technology background, entrepreneurial spirit, and zeal to make a difference, to build a company to save the lives of newborn children.
Coming from business families, they couldn’t envision themselves working in service companies for long. Therefore, immediately after returning to India from USA in 2007, they started Oxyent, an offshore product development company, with its first client based out of Germany. Within a year, Harpreet, with the help of his PhD advisor, forged an alliance with Philips and Electrical Geodesics Inc. (EGI) where the objective was to integrate data collected from the brain and the body and analyse it to aid diagnosis. Harpreet grasped the opportunity with both hands and invested the next three years in pursuing it.
It was hard times. Harpreet had to manage a large team and put in long hours at work. He had to do all this while raising loans. At times the deferred payment of his credit card bills. His family questioned him on the point of it all. But, all such questions were answered when he sold the product to EGI and settled all his loans and left enough for buying a house.
Tougher times were not far away. The couple faced tremendous challenges. Their twins were born prematurely . One of the twins passed away in the first week itself, and the other had to be hospitalised for 10 more weeks. This came as a rude shock, while Harpreet was finally feeling settled in a regular job at McKinsey. Rising above their grief, the duo decided to find solutions that would help others facing similar issues.
After trying to multitask, Harpreet quit McKinsey, realising that this problem needed his entire attention. iNICU was started to build a platform that could analyse prenatal data to help doctors identify issues a week in advance and administer antibiotics to the child. They soon received recognition from various national and international bodies. iNICU is now funded entirely by the South Korean government and sources its equipments from China.
“ Success is fixing all areas that need improvement.”
Harpreet believes that entrepreneurs must spend time with their customers to truly under- stand the market and be successful in the long-run, instead of being clouded by awards and accelerators. In this tough journey, apart from their strong background in building great products, Harpreet and Ravneet derive strength from their son.
Their work at iNICU is not done. They draw satisfaction from saving lives. They are addressing a critical need in India. Next, they want to make iNICU a large enough intervention to create a worldwide impact. The duo has seen grief from up close. They are committed to ensuring that no other parent ever encounters it.