Ved Prakash: Scientist and Entrepreneur on an Extraordinary Journey

Through consistent and persistent efforts, I was qualified to study as the first batch of students at NISER, Bhubaneswar on full scholarship. Even though there was no building, faculty or director, I joined NISER because I was being paid to study and at the same time, I was getting a chance to be part of the creation of an elite institute. Previously, I liked physics a lot but with time, I got fascinated by chemistry seeing that there were a lot more possibilities of practical applications. Meanwhile, I observed that the instruments that were being bought at NISER were pretty expensive. That motivated me to build a cost effective instrument. Carrying forward the idea during my first year summer break, with the help of a few people, I built a centrifuge using a scooter engine from the junkyard. Lacking proper guidance, it never went beyond prototype but I did learn a lot because of failure. I was made fun of and told to leave science instead to become an engineer. I chose not to listen to them and with determination built a small electronics lab in my room itself. During the next few years, I happened to engage in lots of student leadership activities, which helped me, understand, if I wanted to get something done, it can be done effectively with a high quality team of people. When I graduated from NISER and appeared for PhD interviews, the two factors that separated me from other candidates were one being my leadership qualities and other my ability to build things. Although I could not appear for the GRE because I did not have a passport, I qualified to pursue PhD in top four colleges in India.

I chose to pursue a PhD at NCBS, TIFR in the field of Nanotechnology and its biomedical applications, clinical diagnostics and drug discovery. Prior to joining the lab, I was warned that it is going to be a tough transition for me but I took the path anyway as I knew that nothing big has been accomplished by doing things in our comfort zone. During the 3rd year of my PhD, my lab moved from India to the University of Chicago expecting we could find more collaborations and start a company to commercialize our ideas. During that period, I did manage to publish four high impact factor papers (two of them in Nature Nanotech, one in Angew Chemie and one in Chemical Science) and also filed a patent, but I realized that it will take 15-20 years to be of practical benefit. In hindsight, I realize that the people who gave me advice to become a scientist had a good intent but they had never created that impact I was looking to create. My journey so far gave me a good start but I felt it was not the best path, as I did not see any of my seniors living the ideal well-balanced and meaningful life that I wanted to live.

By networking with many successful people, I understood that the true meaning of success is about how many people are living a better life because of our efforts. One of my seniors saw potential in me and introduced me to a successful entrepreneur who was already living the ideal stress-free and meaningful life that I always wanted to live. Hence, I worked hard to earn his time and with his mentorship, I was able to gain some basic entrepreneurial experience by working with him on his projects similar to gaining research experience during my PhD. Even though I had no business doing business, I pursued this direction because it could produce the life I have always wanted to live. Few years of consistent and persistent hard work allowed me to be in a position where in parallel to my primary career as a researcher, I currently run two debt-free and profitable companies in health and entrepreneurship education in four countries. My goal, in next 10 years is to help at least 10 more people having the vision to accomplish similar outcomes resulting together a positive global impact.