Teja Sravanthi Darapureddy on AI and the Future of Healthcare Innovation

My early years in software quality assurance shaped the way I approach almost every business decision today. In that role, I learned to examine how a system actually works, question assumptions and look for problems before they affect the user. It also taught me that meeting a technical specification is not the same as solving a business problem.

I began my career in IT and later completed my master’s in information technology at Coventry University in the UK. As I moved into broader business and operational responsibilities, I began seeing the same issues from the customer's and management's perspectives. A good idea only becomes valuable when people can implement it reliably.

That is the experience I carry into entrepreneurship: understand the problem first, ask difficult questions early and make sure the solution works in the environment for which it was designed.

Honestly, SCAHI came from two things I kept seeing again and again.

One was that a lot of good AI research in healthcare never reaches the actual hospital, lab or patient. It stays in papers and presentations. The second was access. In India, especially in rural areas and smaller towns, many people get diagnosed very late, simply because testing and screening never reached them in time.

At Sysrek we were already building healthcare software. But I wanted a dedicated space where we could work on the bigger questions, like how to predict disease risk early, how to make AI that doctors can understand and trust, and how to take diagnostics to people instead of waiting for them to come to us. That is how SCAHI started, as the R&D centre of Sysrek.

My mission has always been to empower healthcare through innovation. For me, accessible healthcare means care that reaches people early and close to where they live, and SCAHI is built exactly around that.

The biggest lesson for me is that leadership is about trust. You cannot be in every meeting and every decision. If your team clearly understands why the work matters, they will take ownership and very often do better than you expected.

As a woman in AI, healthcare and technology, I also learned not to wait for someone to give me permission. I realised early that the best way to earn respect is through delivery. When you keep your commitments, people start trusting you, whether they are clients, partners or your own team.

I also strongly believe in giving young people, especially young women, real responsibility early. That is how they grow, and that is how we build the next set of leaders.

The idea behind Healthcare on Wheels is very simple. If people cannot come to healthcare, healthcare should go to them.

Our mobile units go to villages and underserved areas and do screening and diagnostic tests on the spot. Everything is recorded digitally, so each visit creates a proper health record instead of a paper report that gets lost. Through telemedicine, patients can connect with doctors and specialists who may be far away. And with AI-based risk analysis, the health team can quickly see who needs follow-up first, so the limited doctor time is used for the people who need it most.

We are building it on standards like FHIR and HL7, so the data can be shared with hospitals and public health systems instead of sitting separately.

The problems we are trying to solve are very common across India and many emerging markets, like long distances, not enough specialists, late diagnosis and scattered health data. I see Healthcare on Wheels as a model that governments, NGOs, CSR programmes and hospitals can adapt for their own regions, and we are open to working with partners who share this vision.

That means the AI has to be properly tested on real data before anyone depends on it. Doctors should be able to see why the system is flagging a patient, not just a score. It should work fairly for different groups of people, because a model trained on one population can give wrong results for another. And patient privacy and consent have to be respected at every step.

I also believe AI should support doctors, not replace them. The doctor is responsible for the final decision, so the technology has to earn their trust. And it does not stop after launch. We have to keep monitoring how the system performs in the real world and follow the regulations that apply to healthcare and medical devices.

All of these areas are important and they are connected to each other. But if I have to pick one, I would say intelligent diagnostic laboratory systems.

Labs are at the centre of so many clinical decisions, and they produce a huge amount of good quality data every single day. With AI, labs can pick up unusual patterns earlier, prioritise urgent samples, improve quality checks and help doctors see how a patient's health is changing over time. I feel this is one of the fastest ways to move towards earlier diagnosis.

But this will only work if the AI is explainable, because pathologists and doctors need to understand the reason behind every alert. And it needs interoperability, so the information can flow between labs, hospitals and public health systems. AI-enabled medical devices will also grow a lot in the coming years, and they will depend on the same foundation.

This is something I deal with every day. As a bootstrapped company, we cannot afford to only dream big, we also have to deliver every month.

What helps me is keeping the long-term vision very clear, and then breaking it down into what we need to achieve this quarter. Sysrek's client projects keep us connected with what organisations need right now, and SCAHI gives us the space to work on what they will need in the future. Both actually help each other. Our projects show us which problems are worth researching, and our research makes our products stronger.

I also try to move fast on small decisions and take more time on the big ones. Not every decision needs a long discussion, but the ones that shape the company do.

Each place taught me something different. In the UK, I learned discipline, especially in regulated industries, where documentation, quality systems and validation are part of everyday work. In India, I see speed, scale and a lot of creativity, where people find solutions even with limited resources. And working on public sector projects in emerging markets taught me how important local partners, government processes and ground realities are for any project to succeed.

All of this shapes how we build at Sysrek and SCAHI. We think about compliance right from day one. We use open standards like FHIR and HL7 so our solutions can work across different countries and systems. And we design for real conditions, like poor connectivity or users who are not very tech-savvy.

When it comes to global partnerships, my experience is that they work best when you combine strong local partners who understand the ground with technology that is flexible enough to adapt.

I think it is very important. So many good ideas in healthcare never move beyond research, because the journey from lab to patient is long and not very clear.

Universities bring research depth, proper methods and young talent. Industry brings real problems, practical experience and the ability to build and support solutions at scale. And hospitals and labs bring the clinical understanding and validation that every healthcare solution needs. At SCAHI, we are actively inviting universities, research institutes, hospitals and diagnostic labs to work with us, and we also offer research fellowships and internships for young researchers.

Intellectual property matters because it protects real innovation and gives partners and investors the confidence to support it. And commercialisation, through proper pilots, clinical validation and regulatory approvals, is what finally takes research to the patient.

For SCAHI, I want it to become a well-known centre for practical healthcare AI, building solutions in India that work for India and for other emerging markets. I would love to see our predictive analytics and Healthcare on Wheels help people get diagnosed earlier, and show that responsible AI can be used in real life, not just talked about.

For Sysrek, my vision is to grow into a trusted global technology partner known for quality, honesty and real impact in healthcare, enterprise and the public sector.

At the end of the day, I want my work to help people get the right care at the right time, especially those who have been left out so far.

And for young women who want to build a career in technology, I hope my journey shows them that it is possible to start a company, work in AI and solve problems that really matter. You don't need to have everything figured out before you start. Just start, keep learning and keep going.