Health Tech: Dinesh Sheth On How Green Circle Life’s Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness

An Interview With Luke Kervin

It should be easy to use. If an application is not user friendly and accessible, people will not gain the most benefit from it, no matter how revolutionary or helpful it is.

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dinesh Sheth.

Dinesh Sheth is founder and CEO of Green Circle Life (GCL). Sheth is a serial entrepreneur who used his experience and knowledge of wireless communication, remote sensory technology and business process optimization to create SmartFHR, an HR benefits app that promotes employee engagement. With SmartFHR, Sheth wants to change the paradigm of health and the healthcare industry and guide employers to lower healthcare costs while improving employee engagement and well-being. Sheth has a Master of Business Administration in Finance and Marketing from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, a master’s degree in computer science from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in Vadodara, Gujarat, India.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I grew up in India with three siblings in a caring family and the focus was on education. We all enjoyed education and got our Masters’ degrees. We were encouraged to do our best. So not only were we to go to school but also excel. I was laser-focused on math, science and engineering.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I learned how to build a positive cycle of success. I climbed the corporate ladder but later started to think, I want to build something for myself instead of someone else. I discovered that I had an entrepreneurial spirit and wanted to be my own boss and do things my way. I liked to solve problems and build products and create services people could use to solve their problems. As I grew my businesses, I learned you are responsible for the choices you make and determining priorities and the direction of the company. I also learned in some businesses there was a cycle of hiring and firing people, but I realized I did not like doing that at all. So, I focused on the direction of the company as well as building smart solutions and creating a culture to attract the kind of people you wanted around you.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My wife. While I have learned from many people — teachers, professors and managers — she has always supported what I do, and not only supported but also stepped in to help me to ensure that everything that needed to be done was done. She is an engineer too and for the last 35 years, she has been instrumental in not only building a family but businesses as well.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Do it. Do it now.” For me it means to act based on what you know at that point. It usually works out or you adjust. I got this approach from reading about Lord Nelson, a British sea captain during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. His leadership tactics drew respect from the people he led.

I have used this say as the basis for my approach to business. If you wait to take action, you have a chance to come up with excuses and a million reasons not to act. If you analyze too much you will not take any action.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Problem solving — I have been good at it all my life. I knew it was a skill to understand a problem so I could solve it. If you are an entrepreneur, you realize you must be good at problem solving to create something new.
2. Eyes toward financial viability — If you are going to create a successful business, finances are the bottom line. Any solution or project must result in making money or in other words, will people pay you for it. If you cannot make money and people will not pay you for the solution, you will not exist. I learned early to determine if a solution I created would be financially viable and to keep an eye on this aspect of business.
3. Persistence — Failure is not an option. You have to stay on it and believe in what you are doing. You should pick the right problem to solve, do what you like doing and do not give up.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

Lower healthcare costs by improving health and wellbeing. The idea is to have companies, where people spend most of their time, play a large role in this effort. Companies can do this by:

1. Engaging employees and their families in a culture of health and wellbeing.
2. Gaining greater ROI from their investment in healthcare and wellness.
3. Using technologies to build better user experiences leading to better engagement leading to better outcomes.

How do you think your technology can address this?

Our SmartFHR is a platform that offers many ways of addressing this issue.

• First, the user experience. People can access the platform either online or via an on their phone, which makes it convenient.
• Second, the information is available 24/7. Users do not have to wait until the HR offices opens to gather information. SmartFHR offers it at their fingertips.
• Third, the platform offers the right service at the right time. Depending on the level of access offered by the participating company, employees can access wellness and benefits information any time.
• Fourth, users can personalize the platform to provide the information they are interested in most. Whether is the latest on yoga trends or the time to enroll in a company’s healthcare savings program, the platform can provide access.
• And fifth, our SmartFHR is just that, smart. It uses analytics to drive actions and it learns what is most important to the user.

The bottom line is that SmartFHR gives people what they want, information. This information can help and encourage them to lead healthy, well-balanced lives.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

I was talking about the health care system with friends, two of them doctors. We were complaining about what was wrong with the system and if we could figure out a way to address health before someone got sick. We talked about how the health care system is designed to take care of sick people, fixing what is broken. The system did not have measures to prevent people from getting sick in the first place.

We discussed that prevention would require people looking at their lifestyle choices that would lead to healthy living. There was the potential of millions of people changing their lifestyle. That led us to think about who benefits from people being healthy: the government and large employers. We showed companies that they need to play a part in changing people’s behavior. It is very difficult for employees and their families to know or take advantage of all the benefits that are available from their employer. We are fortunate as a family to have a high degree of access and knowledge to that information and still we struggle to get the most from our healthcare.

Employers, who already have a strong connection with their employees through HR, can help people make those changes by giving them an app that pushes out information on health and wellness in addition to benefits. One app that could help an employee and their family engage in healthy behavior and manage their health information.

How do you think this might change the world?

The model we have built shows that a well-designed platform like SmartFHR not only lowers healthcare costs but also improves quality of life by lowering absenteeism which leads to greater productivity. Healthcare needs to focus on prevention and improvement through lifestyle changes.

Employers trying to attract and retain talent can get there by engaging them in their culture of health and wellbeing. Everyone wins.

SmartFHR engages families in company-provided benefits and health and wellness programs that are personalized for each family. We believe tremendous improvements can be made in a person’s life with lifestyle changes and if we achieve this there will be a healthier and more productive workforce generating greater value for employer and all their stockholders.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Yes, what will happen if I become dependent on my employer to provide me all these services? What happens when I go to next employer who does not offer me the same wonderful application? How will I continue my quest to have a healthy lifestyle?

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)

1. It should be easy to use. If an application is not user friendly and accessible, people will not gain the most benefit from it, no matter how revolutionary or helpful it is.
2. It should be affordable. People and companies need to justify the cost of something even when it will improve their lives.
3. It should be readily available to everyone and be safe and secure.
4. It should be financially viable to develop and maintain.
5. It should keep evolving as the world is not static.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

If you really care about something, you should take action to take care of it and make it better.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

President Joe Biden. He has the largest pool or resources to make a difference. He has also seen the world and can determine what is feasible with that opportunity.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

They can visit our website, www.greencirclelife.com, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. Also, they can find some of my articles on the Forbes Council.

Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.