India, March 22 -- Pune

Problems abound or existing solutions can be made better, often leading to the beginning of a startup. Preeti Joshi was trained at IIT Varanasi in MEMS (Micro Electronic Mechanical Systems), doing research at NCL when her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and later passed away. Says she, "That incident shook me. I thought why are we doing research that has intellectual value but does not impact people's lives more directly? Why shouldn't I use my time and energy to do something that can help people more directly?"

And that led to the setting up of a company that has now developed the Sep-Scan

Recalling the time, Preeti says, "Together with my husband Harish Joshi (IIT Kharagpur and ISB Hyderabad) and S...