Wise people say that every crisis brings along with it an in-depth learning opportunity for those who are curious enough learning to see the bigger picture without losing the focus on the micro-level.
Watt Technovations Private Limited, established by Nihaal Singh Adarsh, Founder & CEO, is precisely doing that. Nihaal is the chief innovator of the company. He is the man behind India’s patented, indigenous, and revolutionary technology- The COVTECH ventilation system. While in his second year of Engineering, he had developed this device to help the medical community and frontline workers struggling with discomfort during the pandemic.
Nihaal’s mother, also a doctor, was facing similar problems. Nihaal first developed this device to solve his mother’s discomfort while treating the patients wearing thick PPE suits. His mother, Mrs Poonam Kaur, along with his father, Mr Sanjeet Singh Adarsh, she has been a persistent supporter of all the innovative solutions developed under Watt Technovations and great contributors to the company’s success.
The development and research period stretched out for the next few months with the creative idea in mind. The company received a grant under the ‘Nidhi Prayas’ program through RIIDL, the incubation center, which helped fund the development of the device. Nihaal is the inspiration for the company’s innovations and success.
The device’s design kept improving for the most user-friendly experience, and various doctors conducted trials to test the working and efficiency. The prototypes were developed in the Dassault Systems 3D EXPERIENCE Lab in Pune.
The device was patented, and it is clinically tested as well. The team consisted of two more members – Digital Marketer/Graphic Designer – Ms. Sayli Bhavsar, and the Design Engineer, Mr. Rutwik Marathe, who largely contributed to the development of the product and the growth and success of the company.
Nihaal further commercialized the technology, partnered with different manufacturers in the state, and made the device ready to help millions of doctors and frontline workers in India. He also exported the device to countries like Thailand, the Philippines, etc.
Nihaal constantly works to create impact and maintain a healthy environment within the company. A great work environment with a great leader makes all the difference in building successful businesses. Nihaal also pitched his company on the reality show SHARK TANK INDIA on Sony TV and onboarded four sharks in his entrepreneurial journey.
While speaking in an interview with Insights Success for its edition of ‘India’s Fastest Growing Start-ups to Watch,’ Nihal said, “We constantly work towards developing economical solutions for the common man, especially in the medical industry where devices have cost much on the higher end.
Building products for the common man takes much innovation and depth thinking, and we at Watt Technovations make it our priority to focus on these two aspects that set us apart from the competitors in the industry.”
Please brief our audience about Watt Technovations, its USPs, and how it is currently positioned as a leading player in the catering industry.
Watt Technovations is focused on intelligent, innovative, tech-based solutions to combat society’s wide array of problems. At Watt Technovations, we believe in ‘Expanding Technical Horizons’ by developing innovative devices to help provide creative solutions to solve daily life problems.
Currently, the company is focused on the COVTECH Ventilation System. During the COVID-19, doctors, health care professionals, and other critical service providers have become our most significant assets.
Having to wear thick PPE suits for long hours leads to the development of enormous amounts of sweat and bacteria, causing discomfort and increased risk of fungal infection. The sole purpose of creating the ‘COVTECH Ventilation System,’ a PPE ventilation device, is to comfort the healthcare professionals working during the COVID-19 pandemic safely. The ‘COVTECH Ventilation System’ compact ventilation system for PPE kits.
Maintaining safety and user experience, the device is extremely lightweight and portable, explicitly designed to act as an add-on component to the existing PPE suits to bring comfort to our front-line medical workers.
What makes Watt Technovations the leader in this industry is the unique design that we have patented, and that makes the device extremely ergonomic and easy to use. The patented technology ensures an edge over the other players in the market whose solutions are way costlier and heavier in weight than the COVTECH Ventilation System.
What other products/solutions does Watt Technovations offer, and how are these making an impact on the industry and your clients?
The Company works in varied domains. One of the upcoming products is the next version called COVTECH Ventilation System 2.0, which caters to the PPE suit and hazmat suits, medical suits used by the army, fire suits, used in steel plants (oxy flame areas), mining, etc.
The COVTECH Ventilation 2.0 is a plug-and-play device that can be used in all kinds of suits. It uses the patented technology of compact design developed in the first version but also considers various environmental conditions outside these suits, different scenarios of usage of the claims, safety aspects, etc.
This new device provides relief to workers and ensures that anyone who risks his life for others by wearing these suits shall be relieved from discomfort and health issues.
The company is also working on SaaS ideas in its service domain, targeting the day-to-day problems we face in today’s services. The company’s efforts to identify other issues faced by professionals in the medical industry or any other industry and their economic solutions are being brainstormed every day within the team to make them possible.
Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on the impact of the adoption of modern technologies such as AI, big data, and machine learning on the industry you are catering to, and what more could be expected in the future?
I am a tech geek and pay attention to the small changes and growth in technologies that create significant societal changes.
I believe that with the rise of portable diagnostic devices, intelligent sensors, IoT, medical tattoos and thumbprints, virtual reality, holographic diagnostics, and other such great technologies, the medical and healthcare sector is going to become more and more efficient, easy to analyse for the medical professionals, and decisions could be much more reliant, and proof based.
The impact of AI, ML, and other technologies will be the most on the healthcare sector. These technologies will change the way we look at our health and impact those who cannot afford suitable medical treatments.
It is essential to build products that affect the common man’s life in India. Many upcoming technological changes in the medical and healthcare sectors have more or less impacted the higher sections of society, with little help for others.
At Watt Technovations, we work to build these technologies for the lower sections of society, with a strong belief that AI, ML, and robotics will primarily affect people’s lives in rural areas of India if we implement a great execution strategy to use them efficiently.
Robotics is a field that catches my eye and will also change the medical industry in the upcoming years. Medical robots will perform perfect surgeries that require concentrated needlework and save lives.
Taking into consideration the current pandemic, what initial challenges did you face, and how did you drive Watt Technovations to sustain operations while ensuring the safety of your employees at the same time?
Initially, Watt Technovations was born during the pandemic and for the warriors of the pandemic. Hence most of the work done by us in the establishment and growth of the company dates back to the lockdown time. During the pandemic time, the primary issue we faced was the risks we were taking while working and traveling, meeting scientists, visiting different laboratories, and testing and commercializing the product to reach the doctors and frontline workers when they needed it most.
Pandemic, however, affected the device’s manufacturing, as the scale-up was much slower due to the lesser number of workers during the lockdowns. We had to focus on maintaining a healthy environment within the team continuously, especially when any member was fighting the virus, which affected the morale of others. Apart from this, we had to grow quickly, to help the doctors, and this was a constant pressure on us to be highly efficient and work hard throughout the lockdown.
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into this industry?
I would advise all the entrepreneurs to keep working towards their goals, no matter the circumstances. Do not get discouraged if you face any problem or failure because entrepreneurs are made for solving problems day and night. That is what makes us different from the crowd. Start-ups are made for evolving continuously and creating innovative products.
Innovating solutions take great efforts, passion, and grit. Try out different solutions that make you curious. Lead the way throughout the challenges because your entire team is looking up to you!
How do you envision scaling Watt Technovations’ operations and offerings in 2022 and beyond?
Watt Technovations will continue to develop innovative solutions for the medical community. We will be working on the COVTECH Ventilation 2.0 version, which would also open channels in foreign markets. We will also be working on different SaaS-based ideas in 2022.
At the same time, our marketing team is working towards the B2B scaling of the first version of the medical device. The operations team will take care of the manufacturing of this device, feedback, and other modifications, and production shall be increased in different parts of India.
With more products lined up, we plan to expand our team horizontally to more software engineers and young talent in sales and branding to scale up quickly with a solid in-house software foundation.
We believe that young India has the passion for working in their fields and creating the impact. We want to support young talent in Watt Technovations and grow together.
In the long run, Watt Technovations would be a tech company offering a wide range of technological products, with one of the best research and development teams to focus on the latest scientific innovations and their implementations for building meaningful outcomes for the evolving society.
