Nilesh Jain
An Alumni of Carnegie Mellon University, Nilesh Jain is a serial entrepreneur and a strategy advisor for emerging entrepreneurs and start-ups. He has over 20+ years of entrepreneurial experience and holds a passion for mentoring start-ups to grow exponentially on a global scale. Nilesh is the co-founder of CliniVantage Healthcare Technologies Inc, an integrated and award-winning SaaS-based healthcare platform. He is also a co-founder of Quitx, an application that helps smokers quit smoking. He is self-motivated to work in the area of healthcare and harm reduction and hence the most important pillar behind Harm Reduction Research and Innovation Center (HRRIC).
Samir Vinchurkar
Samir currently works with multiple organizations as a consultant in the area of innovation and entrepreneurship, healthcare research in neurological & pulmonary imaging, respiratory drug delivery, lung deposition and modeling, and tobacco harm reduction. Samir is part of an international team responsible for deploying and augmenting ‘Disciplined Entrepreneurship’ at Irish Universities originally developed by Bill Aulet at MIT. Samir has served as Director of Fluidda NV (Belgium), In-Med Prognostics (India) and as Head of RIIC (Research Innovation and Incubation Centre) & Asso. Samir has driven startups in healthcare bringing along a deluge of research experience with over 30 refereed international publications receiving awards from Elsevier.
Francie Patel
An Angel investor, entrepreneur and ex-investment banker who is passionate about working across different industry verticals. Francie is committed to the initiative of harm reduction along with increasing awareness regarding tobacco and its ill effects on health. She is also the founder of Quitx wellness private limited, an app-based cessation program that will help tobacco users switch to RRP or quit it completely. Francie is one of the first team members to be associated with the work we are intending to do with HRRIC as she was actively involved with the writing of the proposed grant to the foundation.
Reena Jhamtani
Dr. Reena is a Toxicologist and forensic chemist occupied in the Analytical, Molecular and Environmental domain. She worked as DST-INSPIRE, SRF (Life Sciences) for the award of PhD degree in Forensic Science (Molecular and Analytical Toxicology) and was engaged in the toxicological assessment of different environmental pollutants in zebrafish at Gujarat Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar. She is currently working as a Research Scientist and helping the organization to establish a global research consortium focusing on eradication of smoking and minimizing the harm caused by HPHC (Harmful and Potentially Harmful Constituents) from Indian smokeless tobacco products (SLTs).
Shweta Vani
A strong believer in her instincts, Shweta has the knack for marketing and strategy to help her clients launch the next big creative idea. After completing her majors in Economics, she decided to build her career in marketing, following her passion for analyzing market behaviors. She is goal-driven and thrives to provide innovative marketing & branding strategies that increase revenues, drive brand awareness, and solidify customer relationships. Currently, she is actively working with brands in the space of healthcare, tobacco cessation, and public welfare. She passionately advocates customer centricity and leveraging bleeding edge competitive intelligence techniques to drive her clients towards the goal.
Advisory Board
Dr. Abhay Chopada
Abhay is a renowned Consultant Surgeon a passionate Healthcare Entrepreneur & an active Investor with companies transforming healthcare. With a global experience spanning over 26 years in Medicine, Healthcare and Health-Tech, Dr. Abhay is an alumnus of the University of London – MMedsci (Surg Sci) and was an integral part of the ‘ “Ready Now” program at NHS Leadership Academy. He has been recognized by Tatler Magazine as one of the Top GI Surgeons in UK. He has been instrumental in defining how technology helps improve processes, protocols and technological advancements that reshape and caregiving practices and policies over the last 15 years.
Dr. Vikas Punamiya
M.D. in Tuberculosis & Respiratory Disease, Vikas Punamiya is one of the founding directors of Advanced Respiratory Interventions & Sleep Evaluation (ARISE) Medical Research Centre, established to improve care in Pulmonary & Sleep Medicine. Dr Vikas is also a panelist for Tobacco Harm Reduction organized by USISPF. He has been helping people quit tobacco addiction and provides counseling as well as cessation and harm reduction programs.