The Provocateurs:

Stuart Crainer:

Hello, and welcome to the Provocateurs podcast. I’m Stuart Crainer, co-founder of Thinkers50. In Provocateurs, we explore the experiences, insights, and perspectives of inspiring leaders. Our aim is to provoke you to think and act differently through conversations with some fantastic people.

Provocateurs is a collaboration between Thinkers50 and Deloitte. My co-host today is Deloitte’s Kulleni Gebreyes. Kulleni is the US Life Sciences & Health Care National Industry leader and US Consulting Life Sciences & Health Care Industry leader. Kulleni, great to see you, and can you please tell me more about today’s fantastic guest?

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Excellent. Stuart, it’s wonderful to be here with you today again, and we have an incredible guest with us today, Rajendra Pratap Gupta.

Rajendra, thank you for joining us. For our audience, Rajendra is a policymaker and author, former advisor to the Health Minister of India, key contributor, and leader provocateur in digital health initiatives across the globe.

Now, he’s done many things, but among those is that he’s founded the Global Digital Health Summit, which aims to create the future of healthcare. He’s also founded the global think tank, The Health Parliament, which is now in 67 countries and collaborates with the world’s leading organizations to ideate innovative policies to make health and well-being accessible to all.

He’s also founded the International Patients Union to empower patients and policymaking, and this is all while advancing his work in digital health with the Academy of Digital Health Sciences, which is now the largest provider of digital health courses globally.

Now, I’ve said health and healthcare and Dr. Rajendra Pratap Gupta, but you’ve said you are not a healthcare professional by choice, so why don’t we start with your story. Tell us who you are and a little bit of your life journey, or why you’re doing all of the things that you’re doing.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Thank you, Kulleni. Thank you, Stuart, for having me. And I think I’m a fan of your podcast. And the question that always is difficult for me to answer is, “What do I do?” But where I started is something that I can always reflect back.

So I was not a good student. I was a very good student. I was a university topper. I wanted to make my career in social service, create societal impact beyond the policy side, but life doesn’t go as per plan. We plan so many things, we believe that all will go well. But when I was in the final year of graduation, my mom had T4 stage cancer. And that kind of turned our life around. So instead of thinking, coming from a family of academicians, to be a professor or a bureaucrat, the doctor told me one line that, “Rajendra, what’s the source of income?”

I said, “My mom’s salary.”

He said, “She has six months to live. First, you’ve got to find ways to get a treatment going, and then rest, you have to plan.”

So that changed the course of my life totally. I left the goal of becoming a civil servant or a professor, and then started applying for jobs. And I still remember the number of applications I put in. So 71 companies, I applied to. I landed into IMS Health, which was starting in India. So I became by default their first employee on the field operations. And that got me in healthcare by default, not by design. I had no choice. And then it was such a roller coaster ride. Like in the seventh year of my starting a career, I was chief operating officer and I always got the chance to work in multinationals.

So I was with Cardinal Health India operations, the Medicine Shoppe. I was the chief operating officer. Ninth year, I got on the board of directors. 10th year, I was the CEO. 11th year, I was the vice chairman and chairman. And 12th year, I resigned. So my corporate career by plan, I decided to give up full-time roles in the 12th year because, the kind of things that my family had passed through, I thought personal goals are great to have but  vice chairman, chairman is the last thing that you hit, there’s nothing beyond that. So what do I do?

I decided to focus on policies and I thought that that was the best way to change the course of millions of people. But of course, I needed to get my kitchen fires going. I had my responsibilities. So I kept doing my board roles, which I did very successfully. Across the world, I still do those board roles.

But I actually ended up doing what I had imagined.

That was my dream thing, to write policies. So I ended up writing the election manifesto of the world’s largest political party that runs the country now. It’s been running for the last… more than a decade, and that was a big switch. So I had a private sector career. I got into the public sector. When you write a policy, eventually you get pulled into the government. So later I was asked to join the health minister as an advisor. That gave me a very interesting opportunity to launch the world’s largest insurance scheme, the biggest digital health mission.

And then I was called to write the education policy. I could have never dreamed of doing these two things to a country as big as 1.4 billion. Writing health and education policy was something of a dream for me. It gives me goosebumps when I think about the kind of things that have been done.

And if that was not enough, the last thing that came to me was writing the economic side, the Viksit Bharat, which has developed their mission, which I created in 2020 and got adopted by the government. So I think this has been a great journey for me starting with deprivation. When your parents are not there, you got to earn your two square meals a day, take the responsibility of the family. And then did, I would say, well in the corporate job, then I decided to take the plunge into policymaking and politics, which has worked well.

And now coming back to the full circle, I run a startup. So I think it’s been an amazing journey and I still can’t think that time has flown by. It’s been close to three decades. It’s amazing.

Stuart Crainer:

Yeah, it is an amazing story, Rajendra. I suppose the one thing that’s missing as an Indian is that you haven’t run Indian cricket yet.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

So I would say I was born-

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Uh-oh…

Stuart Crainer:

I was just bringing Rajendra back to Earth. That is the biggest job if you’re an Indian.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Yeah, I think we worship two things, films and cricket.

Stuart Crainer:

There’s a great quote from you, Rajendra, saying that you’ve always taken on jobs and ideas that others thought wouldn’t work, and you’ve made them happen. So-

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Stuart, this is- 

Stuart Crainer:

Why did they come to you in the first place? Because there’s lots of other people, but they came to you, and you make them happen. But what also gives you the belief? Where was the confidence in yourself that you could make things happen?

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

So Stuart, this is a very interesting question. I never planned for it. When I joined IMS, I thought I had got into one of the biggest companies, into pharma research and consulting, and it was a good run. I still remember I would complete my month’s job in three, four days, call up the headquarters, and say, “Do you have more work for me?” So I always believed in doing my work fast and well.

Then once suddenly, one fine day, I get a call, “You are sent for induction training.”

I got worried because the job was very important for me. I had a sister to marry, had my brother, so I actually ran to the call PCO booth, that time we didn’t have mobile phones, and I called the general manager saying, “I got this letter that said induction training, so did I do something wrong?”

He said, “No, no, you have been promoted to regional manager.” I was surprised because I was still under my probation period.

Now, that being said, when I got pulled into Bombay, the headquarters of IMS, in a few months, I got called by the managing director and said, “I have tried three of your bosses. Nepal as a country is not doing well so you have a chance to turn it around.”

I didn’t plan for it, but it just would’ve happened that I turned it around in 54 days. But I always see, when I reflect back, somehow God gave me those opportunities that were like people would not be able to deliver on that or would not accept. So when I joined IMS, I didn’t realize what job it was. So I went to a few of my friends and asked, “My job is to collect data from chemists, from stockists, and report.”

They said, “Don’t do it. No one is going to give you trade secrets.” I still took it up and had the fastest rise. I handled Nepal operations in just I think three or four years of my working for the company. Got into Medicine Shoppe, which was Cardinal’s Arm. So when I joined, they said, “It’s the fastest growing chain. We are signing five deals, opening three shops.”

I get into the first boardroom meeting, and I said, “So which shops are we opening now?”

He said, “Which shops are you talking about? We have not signed a deal since April.”

I said, “We are in August. I was told this.”

The MD tells me, “Had I told you the reality, would you have joined?”

I said, “Oh, my goodness…” The only thing I can do is resign and go to the other thing, or I can turn this around.

So I got always into situations that pushed me to say, “Let’s do it.” And it was, again, not by design. It was by default that I landed into situations.

But I also saw… I think, Stuart, this is very interesting. I think at some stage I would write a book on this: that if you’re not so confident and you’re still hardworking, you make it to the top because you always work hard to prove yourself. So I think the biggest qualification is not always being the…

I would say the right word, may not be confident, but some of that inherent shaking feeling in you that’s saying, it’s a tough job, but I’m determined to deliver on this. So I think that has become my… Been my biggest strength, is determined. I’m not sure if I was confident because all the sectors I got in from market research to retail, retail to policy, when I wrote the manifesto, people said, “Hey, look, you come from health. You’re going to write for all parts, all the sectors?”

I said yes, then I really worked hard. I used to work almost 20 hours a day, meeting hundreds of people every day, asking them, “What do you want? Why do you want?” So I think I was pushed into situations, and I tried to deliver my best.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Rajendra, you’ve probably heard the saying in the U.S. It says, “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” right? And it sounds like you’ve had the persistence to take all the things that happen and convert them into something really positive. And you’re an amazing thinker. So as we talk about your journey, one of the concepts that you’ve talked about related to healthcare is healthcare is a unique electoral proposition. And tell us what you mean by this and how we should rethink our mental model of healthcare.

Healthcare as a Unique Electoral Proposition

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Excellent. So I always wanted, because my situation at that point in time was courtesy of a broken healthcare system –  that my mother was not diagnosed with cancer early on. By the time she was diagnosed, she was almost in the flash phase. And to get health on the agenda of any lower middle income country is a tough course because they have competing priorities of infrastructure, finance; health and education come last. So then I was thinking what will make it tick to them that they need to focus on healthcare? So I coined this term like you have U.S.P, unique selling proposition. I coined the term unique electoral proposition. 

So I spent a lot of time on research and then created this health as a unique electoral proposition. And when this book came out, I went to my prime minister, and I told him, “Look, if you want to win elections again, let’s do healthcare.”

And I also suggested to him that, “Let’s create an insurance scheme where we can give insurance to people for the amount I get as a middle class guy.” And that is where this worked very well. Today, we have the world’s largest insurance scheme. And I think this is something that every country should do. I had done enough research. I think if you give good health, good education, and good security in terms of the laws and enforcement, any country can prosper.

And so health as a unique electoral proposition has stuck very well with my country, and I’ve been able to convince my bosses that, “Look, we have to invest.” And this unique electoral proposition is something that I would suggest every country’s leadership to think about: that if you invest in health, you invest in the economy.

Preemptive care: beyond prevention

Stuart Crainer:

Another concept you’ve championed, Rajendra, is the idea of preemptive health, preemptive care. Preemptive care rather than preemptive health. Can you tell us more about preemptive care? What do you mean by that? How does it operate in practice?

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Yes, Stuart. So we have been into health, and we have seen how the world has evolved. So we start with preventive care, which was early, early 30s, 40s, kept reducing to 20s, but still the problem has not been solved. We are living longer, we are falling sick often, chronic diseases occurrence is very high. So I always thought, where do we make this first intervention? Because the concept of primary intervention does not work. If you see it, in reality, only secondary prevention gets in. So once you have diabetes, you start thinking of preventing the CKD. So once you have hypertension, you think of preventing heart attack. So what has actually worked in the world is secondary prevention, too late. And so I used to think like, “What will work?” So I got a chance to give a TED Talk in NU.S. Singapore. I said I should bring a new concept there.

And that’s where we got into one level before preventive care called preemptive care. The way I use the word is to preempt the occurrence of diseases starting with children in schools. So if you catch them young, if you do… People actually go for screenings. I say let’s go for health assessments. So this is non-invasive. You can have the family history, the lifestyle, the diet, and some basic checks. And if you do the health screening, you can actually move to preemptive care where you can preempt the occurrence of diseases. I was very lucky when I coined this term, gave a TED Talk in Singapore in 2015. Actually in 2016, I embedded that in the national health policy of India. It is now a part of the national health policy. So I think the world has to look at starting with children. And that’s where preemptive care comes before preventive care.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

There’s a lot of benefit to doing that as you’ve mentioned in the example that you shared about your mother. And we know that cancer affects one in three of us in some way, whether us or somebody we love. And so when you talk about getting diagnosed at the last stage at stage four versus the first cell or maybe even knowing the risk that you have a risk factor for it, so you never get it. So that, Rajendra, really resonates with me.

But the other thing we’ve heard you talk about the chronic disease are the ABCDEs, and maybe you can tell us a little bit about the alphabet soup there, and how it takes more than projects or programs to address some of these chronic conditions, and the role that institutions play in addressing the chronic diseases that impact us directly or impact someone we care about and love.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Very interesting point. See if I look at this ABCDE, when I spoke in the U.N. General Assembly Hall, it was 2011 in preparation for the heads of state summit. But the very alphabets have added new diseases. Dementia wasn’t there then. Alzheimer’s wasn’t there then. If I were to talk about ABCDE, I would’ve probably added three, four more.

So look at how we are progressing, or rather regressing, whatever word we may use in terms of managing health and how health is deteriorating with new challenges coming. So I think I made a point then by the time we touch 40, we are already predisposed or already having a chronic disease. But I think now, if I were to give the same talk after 14 years, I would say it’s happening much earlier. Now kids are having heart disease, kids are having diabetes, the juvenile diabetes, the way it is changing. But it also signals us what we need to do.

I still remember when the concept of population health came in. And my job is, as not just a policymaker, but as a family head is to look at what do we do to solve this problem? And that’s the approach I look at. I think even population health as a concept needs to undergo a change. That means that we need to move to family health.

And that said, I’m working on a campaign called JOY. And this acronym, again, I coined is called Just On You. JOY stands for Just On You. And the whole idea of JOY campaign is that there should be a family member, could be a sibling, could be a son, daughter, mother who takes the responsibility to nudge their family members on healthier choices. And if we do not do that, we are actually living in a time where chronic diseases will not only push families back by decades, but I think the countries’ economies would be devastated. I don’t think we have the wherewithal to handle the economic burden of ill people in any country, whether it’s U.S. or it is Somalia, it doesn’t matter at all.

Stuart Crainer:

It would be very easy to be daunted and depressed in a way by the challenges in the healthcare world. How do you manage to maintain your optimism and your positivity in the face of all these things, because it’s a fast changing world, as you say?

“Your healthcare is not you, it is your data”

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Stuart, I’m actually very optimistic  that our world will be happier in a healthier place. And I will give you an example of what we will see eventually in healthcare. Let me tell you right from your current way of looking at people. So we shifted from people to patients. We have to shift towards populations, and from populations we have to shift towards family. Technology allows us to do that.

Even going beyond, if we start looking at health risk assessments before screenings, we will be able to identify early on. And I firmly believe that AI, we are actually working on that solution, is that I can actually get a child of 13, 14 years, or even little later, I can put all the data in that system. Through AI, I can actually predict that, “At the age of 30, this is what you will be. At the age of 40, this is what you will be. At the age of 50, this is what you will be.”

And I think those kinds of approaches will nudge people to stay younger and fit. Not only that, I’m also very optimistic that today we use the industrialized system of medicine. So if I have diabetes, you will give me metformin. Nothing wrong in it. They’re time-tested, proven drugs. But why do you think one dosage will work on me, or Kulleni, on you, when our body breaks down the food in a different manner?

So I believe that the real medicine has still not started. We have still not started what is scientific medicine. We can call it modern always because we always go and compare to complementary and alternative therapies, but scientific medicine has still not started. Scientific medicine will be, when you look at my genotype, my phenotype, you will tell me that the doses that I’m giving to him will not work on you, so you will be taking this. You will not be taking at this time.

I think the best time of medicine is still to come. The best therapies are still to come. And I’m quite optimistic that we will be able to tell people that you may not need medicine. Maybe I would be switching your gene and taking you off medication. I’m quite optimistic that not only there’s one way, like right now, we have one way to treat 8 billion people, there will be at least 16 billion ways to treat 8 billion people. Probably more. So I’m quite optimistic that the real time of medicine is still to come. The real companies are still to start. They have not started as yet. So if you ask me, I work and I feel so excited waking up every day that the world is still to see the best of times. And I’m happy about that.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Rajendra, I will tell you, to have your mentality and disposition at this time in this world when there are lots of geopolitical, just technology, and just uncertainty, and we faced a pandemic already, kind of preparing for what’s next, it’s quite inspiring, right? But I’m curious as we think about what the future of medicine will be with genotype, phenotype, physiology, biome, all of it coming together, there’s also a lot of discussion around food as medicine and so that it’s not just the pills that you take, but everything you put in your body can either be an irritant to your physiology and your genetics or it can actually mitigate risk factors. What’s your thinking of food as medicine, and how would you ask our audience to think about that?

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

I think historically, if you look at the ancient systems, whether it is Ayurveda in India or it is other systems of medicine, we have always used this line, “Food be thy medicine.”

If you really look at food serves your best medicine, as long as you consume it in the right manner… Today, how do we consume food? Let’s understand one thing. We eat when we have fixed timing of meals. Who decided that? Why should you have breakfast at 8:00? Why should you have lunch at 1:00? Why should you have dinner at 7:00? So we feed ourselves based on time, not based on needs. We feed ourselves based on taste, not on RDAs. So I think it’s a mental shift. I see, Kulleni, it’s such a great podcast, and I keep hearing… And on this platform, if someone comes, I think one is oriented to talk on that level.

I believe that the very way we look at food, the very way we look at medicine, and the very way we look at our routines need a paradigm shift. That’s why I say that when people say we have reached the pinnacle of technology, the pinnacle of progress, I think we have barely scratched what humanity can do. And we are just getting there. And thanks to the connected world, faster. I think I’m not worried about the side effects of medicines that have happened in the past.

Of course, I don’t want to scare people to stop taking medicines, but I want them to think about natural ways of managing your problems. It’s not that you have to shun modern medicine because you did today, but I know people who live healthy, and they have been aligned to nature. We are not all aligned to nature. So I think big shifts are needed.

Stuart Crainer:

So the future of healthcare you’re mapping out, Rajendra, is more holistic, more pragmatic, and more individually customized, moving from the industrial age of healthcare to something that’s more customized and responsive to the individual. And all these elements are going to be delivered potentially by digital healthcare and AI.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

So Stuart, I think your one word captures the essence: holistically. When you say holistically, it means you are not treating the symptom. You are treating the individual in relation to the environment, in relation to their history, in relation to everything. So holistically, the word also applies on different dimensions. So to me, when you’re treating me, it is holistic. What you’re giving me as a care is also holistic. So you’re telling me, “You’ve got to change to have this.” So holistic will have different connotations. And I believe that it is still to evolve. It is still to get accepted because still we have those silos and we also have very firm opinions on the medical system, I would say therapies. And I think when the TCM got the Nobel Prize, it did ruffle many feathers. The first time traditional Chinese medicine had got a Nobel Prize.

Technology as the solution, not just the platform

So I think the world is evolving, technology will make it happen fast. So I think technology will have a dominant role, and through many ways, technology will be the solution besides being a platform for the solution.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

So that’s a really interesting statement, Rajendra, that technology will be the solution and not just the platform. Tell us how that comes together with making access to healthcare easier through digital. Because as you’ve mentioned, and I think you and I have spoken, I practiced medicine at the bedside, and if you had asked me 20 years ago, “Will people log into a computer and see a doctor or will they be happy to see a community health worker and think that they’re getting the same healthcare or get the best advice from a nutritionist,” I would’ve said, “No way.” Clearly COVID and the evolution of how we think about that JOY concept of just only for you is an important one. So how has COVID and technology allowed us to rethink what it means to access care, and how does it make it more individualized for large populations?

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Excellent. So let me give you a history. I think all of us who are into technology or any field, this is very interesting observation. And I have studied the human history. As a policymaker, I don’t look at few years, I have to go back and look how the world evolved. So let’s look at how the world evolved.

Initially, if you are strong as an agrarian economy, you were very strong. So India had 27% of the world GDP. We were an agrarian nation. Then came the phase where you were very strong in the firepower, you ran the world. So U.K. and U.S. dominated the world because it was military power. So from agrarian economies to military.

Then came a phase when trade was the real power. So we are all fighting with China because China has become a dominant trading country. And that’s where it’s the strongest. So look at the historical shift. Agrarian, military, trade, what’s next? That’s the beauty. So it’s technology. And that’s why I think all of us are jostling for this leadership in technology. The narrative is around AI, but there are many technologies.

So that’s where I say that people will see this as an economic or a technological shift, I see this as a societal shift. I see this as an intergenerational shift. When this kind of shift happens where the society gets driven and led by technology, do we really have a choice?

Now let’s get to what you’re saying that, how will technology be the solution that I said? I also work on the other side of implementing technology. While writing policies, the high-level stuff, the meat lies in implementing them. So a few years back I was invited with the prime minister’s office of Bangladesh to help them draft the AI policy.

So I said, “What will make this country understand the importance of AI?” And I put my talk on, “Your healthcare is not you, it is your data.” It may appear very provocative, but look at what it is. When I entered the healthcare system, it is my ID that matters, not my name. When I put my diagnostics, my HbA1c is a number. So right from your ID to your diagnostics to your treatment, I’m sure you’re aware of how big software, the drug industries, the DTX, and all.

So software is also your health coach, software is also your treatment, so you have today gaming to use to treat ADHD. You have psychometric tools. So look at the broad canvas of technology, how it is emerging. So I use the health data as my ID, as my diagnosis, as my coach, and as my treatment. AI is actually data. So when I look at technology, I think there are big shifts that I’m going to see in the world. And the big shifts are the doctors. Today patients are passive recipients of care. They would not be much – I think it’ll be like three years away, I would say at max, for most parts of the world – but they’ll be active recipients. They will go back and question the doctors. They will know as much information as a doctor knows, thanks to the democratization of technology. Today, I have 20 sensors in and on my body. And I say I’m not in just digital health, digital health is also in me. I know exactly how my body numbers are. So just imagine what level of change it is happening. I see my sugar readings at any time of my day and I know what exactly is working, what is not working. My BP, my ECG, everything. So I think technology is going to change the way we interface with healthcare. It’s going to make some fundamental shifts. We actually made this as our overarching theme for the startup, which we are pushing all over the world now. Doctors will move beyond the stethoscope, that’s a fundamental thing. You would not be just dependent on… The whole idea that was more of, I would say, representative way to put it.

“From bedside to website”

The second is that the hospital will move beyond beds. As you said, we are moving from bedside to website. Pharma companies that historically have sold pills will move to selling therapies. Technology is going to make a big difference. And care will move from four walls to five fingers. It already has. It’s not new. It looks like COVID fast-tracked it. Actually not.

Since I wrote a comprehensive book on digital health, Kaiser Permanente, their online consultations exceeded face-to-face consultations way back in 2012. Harvard did the very interesting study in Kenya where they tracked 15 million residents, they were not able to figure out where malaria was happening. What was the place?

And after tracking those SMS from the 12,000 mobile towers, they figured out it was Lake Victoria. It was in 2007/8, it was large scale. So technology has proven itself. It is not just a platform, it’s a solution itself. And I think with the newer things happening, so let me give you an example.

Recently, one of the Indian hospitals is testing a PillBot™. An endoscope will not be required because I ingest that pill. It’s actually been tested. We’ve seen that. And I can use that [joystick] and actually navigate. Just imagine that one of the instruments will go off from the medical jargon, endoscope, it’ll be the PillBot™. It’s perfect, it’s pretty easy, and it gives me complete picture. So how technology is changing the phase of how we deliver healthcare is amazing. Within the patient’s union, we have actually put up the beta version whereby before the end of this year, you may not require to go to a primary care physician.

If you have any problem, just speak your symptoms. You don’t even have to type. It will tell you what to do. We tested it in our office, so it told the person that, “You have a migraine, this is the medicine.”

And she said that, “Sir, this is exactly what my doctor wrote.”

So just imagine what technology is doing to healthcare. I have just given you a few examples, but it is amazing. I think there is a lot more that we will see in the next three to five years that will change the way we look at care. I have, I think in India now, 17,000 smart beds. I don’t need nurses near every bed. The numbers come to a dashboard, I can really rationalize which doctor to give what load of work, which nurse to be going at which station, I think technology is unimaginable in many ways. Those who have not seen it are still, I would say, living in the stone age.

Stuart Crainer:

So where do you look to for inspiration, Rajendra? Who gets this? Who gets these ideas and puts them into practice? Which individuals, organizations, countries, systems, where’s best practice?

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

The one word is pain, the pain of the people.

So I’ll give you an example. So today before this call, I was looking at the messages of a patient who has gone to India’s best hospital in Delhi. I feel so sorry that in seven-and-a-half months he is in this hospital, which is among the top 100 hospitals in this country, the world, actually. Ames has been listed as one of the top 100 offices in the world.

His wife is unwell. In seven-and-a-half, eight months, we are not able to start his treatment. This guy is running from pillar to post with the best of doctors. So my thought was that no matter how big they are, can we not use technology to remove this hassle? So my inspiration comes from the pain of people. And I think all of us who have some humanity left in us, which I think a good number of people in the world have, they challenge themselves, saying we should solve this problem.

So I think my inspiration comes from being in the trenches. I cannot see people being in pain, and I think we have to find solutions. Technology comes in handy. But there are other ways too. My inspiration comes from the pain of people.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Rajendra – an extremely powerful statement. And if that’s where your inspiration comes from, there’s so much pain with people, in people across the world by all. So at any given time on any given day, with all the things that you’re involved in, how do you then decide where to focus your time and energy of what to solve for, given pain is ubiquitous? And when we think about healthcare itself, the system of healthcare is sick and disabled. And so how do you select your priorities of what to address first, second, third?

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Interesting one. So, I always used to say that I don’t manage time, time manages me. I always look at, where is the maximum impact. So right now, if you ask my immediate focus areas, we have started appreciating the power of technology  of Silicon Valley, London, Paris…but see, millions die every day in Africa. We have a technical maturity. We have probably organizational maturity in many parts of the world. But what about those folks? What mistake did they do? Did you and I choose to be born in the families we were born? We could have been born there too. When I see their pains, that is what has led me to launch this movement called Digital Health Without Borders, saying, “Where is the… Technology is there, there are people who need it that die for want of right information, right perception, which is family care.”

So I always choose where we will have maximum impact. So right now, my biggest focus is helping people in need where there’s a solution. For where I have to create a solution, I’m working. One of the biggest challenges, as you rightly said, where there is so much pain, I see there is so much opportunity. When you wake up you say, “Hey, look! I wish I had more time, I had more hands to do it.”

The big digital and the economic divide where one side, the big corporations are growing bigger, the poor people are going poorer. So there is a need for a distributed growth model. So I will always work with various platforms. I will choose my priority. So within the U.N., my job is to use technology for jobs. So what I’m doing at U.N. for Africa, my goal is very clear. By next year I should be able to demonstrate how many lives did we touch and save with technology solutions that we have here.

As long as you have your heart in the right place, I think resources keep following you. And I think, finally, you look at the large canvas, and then you pick up which one I’m going to address. Health is my first love by default. I know a little bit of it, so I try to do there. And without economy, I think we will not do anything so that remains my next focus.

“Help a stranger every week”: simple actions for change

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Yeah. Rajendra, there’s so many incredible things that you’ve shared with us, and obviously your life story and your professional story is a testament to your belief system and the impact. If you were to ask Stuart and I or anybody who’s listening on something, an action we should take or how we can be part of this movement to make health and wellbeing accessible to all, what would you want everybody else around you to be inspired to do?

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

I would say first, help anyone. Help a stranger every week. You give a smile to people. Create that trust. I think today we have lost trust in the society. We always look at people with suspicion. I first would say, “Help a stranger every week. Do good, that is your prayer.” I do not do formal prayers or worship. I believe it’s the good act that you do is your best prayer. And don’t do anything for sake seeking a return from anywhere. I think as human beings, we are trained to be doing good and feeling good about it. I think we should help people. I think there’s nothing specific that I would say, but a good act, your heart always makes you feel happy about it.

Stuart Crainer:

Rajendra, we’re out of time. Thank you for your truly inspirational insights. Well, I’m taking away JOY, Just On You. We’re moving to therapies. We’re moving from care from four walls to five fingers. Scientific medicine hasn’t yet really started. These are really bold, exciting adventures for our collective futures. And your line that inspiration comes from the pain of people is truly remarkable. So on behalf of Kulleni and I, we really appreciate our conversation today. Truly provocative and thought-provoking.

So for everybody watching, you can check out Rajendra’s work. He’s the author of a number of books, so check him out there. But also the International Patients Union, the Health Parliament, and a range of other initiatives he’s mentioned, please check them out because it’s really thought-provoking and important work. Rajendra, thank you very much.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Stuart and Kulleni, you have been amazing. You are doing amazing work. I salute you for your work that you have done. Very innovative. Thank you so much.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Thank you, Rajendra.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta:

Thank you.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Thanks, Stuart. Wonderful to connect.