An Introduction to the Art of Production: aifred health’s Product Development Team
A product developer for an AI tech start-up must have an arsenal of good qualities: bridging the gap between artificial intelligence and human users requires finesse, developing a product requires perseverance, and working at a start up requires flexibility. Finding someone who embodies all of these characteristics is a lofty goal. At aifred health, we didn’t find one developer to create the interface of our clinical decision aid for improving depression treatment efficacy- we found two.
With life science backgrounds and programming expertise, Nykan Mirchi and Steven Zhang are a powerful AI health-tech product development team. Mirchi has plans to practice medicine and Zhang is currently completing a Master’s degree in Neuroscience. A foundation in biological science factors heavily into the design and development of a product created for clinician use — Mirchi and Zhang’s interdisciplinary backgrounds give them insight into how to effectively present data to healthcare professionals, a valuable perspective for the aifred health product. As Zhang puts it: “Our coding and health backgrounds give us a frame of reference on both sides of the problem we’re trying to tackle — we can understand the information from both a technical and medical perspective.”
However, the product development team also must consider users other than clinicians when working on their other project: the company website. Acting as translators between the start-up and diverse audiences of investors, patients, and collaborators requires an understanding of what each group needs and wants from the product. In order to effectively address the priorities of different audiences, Mirchi and Zhang use a feedback-based approach, constantly garnering opinions from patients, researchers, and team members and then refining the interface based on thoughts from representatives of various groups. “Patient feedback is incredibly valuable,” says Mirchi. “It’s important for people seeking treatment for depression to feel comfortable with the technology that will be used in front of them — the product and the website have to be approachable and user-friendly for both physicians and patients.”
The other main priority for these product developers is scalability. In a rapidly evolving field like AI, designing an inflexible framework is like building a baby crib out of gold — a lot of effort and expense for something that will only be outgrown. Mirchi and Zhang emphasize the importance of anticipating the need to change, and building a product framework with the ability to adapt as the company grows and accumulates data. According to Zhang, “The only way to prepare for unpredictable future expansion is to construct a malleable product framework which can be modified as the field evolves.”
Both product developers acknowledge that the creative freedom allowed in a start-up setting augments their design process. In addition to an environment which rewards creative exploration and innovation, product development at aifred health is based on collaboration and constant assessment. The company changes frequently, as a start-up does, with modifications and new ideas bouncing around as part of our evolution in a competitive field. Keeping up with the action demands collaboration with the back-end teams to ensure smooth integration, as well as continually seeking out feedback to optimize user experience. As opposed to a static, one time task, product development for this type of application demands dynamism and the ability to adjust as needs change.
By this point, you may have forgotten that Zhang and Mirchi are both university students. In addition to their duties at aifred health, they also have academic responsibilities. How do Zhang and Mirchi find the time work on product development? “We love what we do at aifred health. While school is a priority, this is a passion — we enjoy the opportunity to apply our knowledge and have a meaningful impact on society,” Mirchi says.
Communication between divisions within the company is essential to avoid isolation of individual teams and ensure everyone is on the same page. The product development and back-end teams in particular are required to share information effectively. The back-end team focuses on development of machine learning algorithms while Mirchi and Zhang are responsible for data handling, storage, and retrieval as well as development of the user interface. Both product developers praise members of the back-end division, describing an open work atmosphere where team members get along on a personal level and are able to work together professionally. This balance between friendliness and professionalism is exemplified by Zhang and Mirchi themselves — when discussing their experiences at aifred health, the two are constantly laughing and firing jokes back and forth; when shifting gears to discuss their plans for product development in the coming weeks, the two are focused and professional. It’s an impressive contrast, and clearly a driving factor for their success as a team.
Clearly, both Steven Zhang and Nykan Mirchi appreciate the value of integrating artificial intelligence approaches into clinical practice. “The potential for AI in medicine is huge, but people tend to be less willing to rely on technology at fear of losing the human factor of medical practice. However, I strongly believe that our decision to keep physicians involved in the decision-making process when using our tool will allow us to have a minimal impact on the human factor,” Mirchi says. “People tend to fear what they don’t understand. By making AI more accessible to medical professionals and patients, we hope that they will become more comfortable with the technology and realize its potential to solve problems which are simply too complex for humans to solve on their own.”
Aifred health is a company centered around the fusion of technology and medicine, and the benefit of this type of integration is exemplified in the capabilities of the product development team. As Zhang puts it: “Diverse perspectives within the company allow us to approach problems in a different manner to build something that can improve the lives of a lot of people.” The potential for AI technology in medicine is huge and vastly unexplored — but with people like Zhang and Mirchi blending computer and life science, the gap between the two disciplines is only getting smaller, and the rewards are only getting bigger.
