The Future Is Now: Dr Rahul Kushwah Of Predictmedix On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Tenacity — Although you need the skillset to launch your startup, what you need even more is determination and confidence to move forward. You need to become the person who is ready to accept challenges daily with the determination that you will overcome it.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Rahul Kushwah.

Dr. Rahul Kushwah is an accomplished biomedical scientist and the COO, Interim CEO and Co-founder of Predictmedix (CSE: PMED) (OTCQB: PMEDF). He has a proven track record in translational research with several peer-reviewed publications along with superior communication skills with over 50 medical and scientific presentations. Prior to launching Predictmedix, Dr. Kushwah held appointments as a Federal Government Scientist, Research Officer within the Human Health Therapeutics branch of National Research Council of Canada along with Professorship within the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. He completed his doctoral research at the University of Toronto and the world-renowned Hospital for Sick Children and was also one of the 23 worldwide recipients in 2012 of the prestigious Banting Fellowship for health research awarded by the Government of Canada.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

During my academic career in the medical research world, one of the things that I got to see firsthand was that the problems being researched upon within the academic/medical community were most of the times not the ones that had an association with immediate world problems. Furthermore, as much as there is the talk on translational research or research cooperation among different fields, it rarely happens. The advancements in data science / machine learning / artificial intelligence / neural networks have been profound over the past decade, but they have not made their way into core medical research.

My aim was to bridge the gap amongst healthcare, medicine and AI, while ensuring that there are real world problems being solved. This laid the foundations of Predictmedix, where the first product that we worked on is an impairment detection solution which uses data captured using multispectral imaging to identify if someone is showing signs of cannabis or alcohol impairment without the need for any biological fluids. We have been able to extend this further by offering a solution that can identify individuals exhibiting signs of infectious disease, such as COVID-19, and are also developing a similar solution to identify the earliest signs of mental illness.

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

I suppose the most interesting story must be the one where I made the switch from being a biomedical scientist at the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada to becoming an entrepreneur. During my tenure as a biomedical scientist with the NRC, I was leading a team that was focused on developing immunotherapy-based treatments for cancer and at the same time, I was able to gain funding for practically all the projects that I was leading. It was a unique juncture as several of the projects that I was leading also had industrial partners and we were also working with multi-disciplinary teams.

I was quick to realize that although in the medical research community we have had several breakthroughs over the years, unfortunately over 99 percent of them have not translated into discoveries that impact healthcare. It was at that stage that I knew that I wanted to do something that could make a difference to the real world, outside of a lab setting. I wanted to extend myself beyond the world of publishing research articles in peer-reviewed medical journals to developing solutions which help people. I was not completely clear on what I wanted to do but I did know that I wanted to do something that has a real impact on the world. A few weeks later, I was visiting my parents back in Toronto and a mutual friend introduced me to Sheldon Kales, who is also a founder of Predictmedix — and the rest is history.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

At Predictmedix, our mandate is to offer AI-driven technologies that solve the issues plaguing the world. The three issues that do carry immense burden globally are impairment, infectious disease (considering the COVID-19 landscape) and mental health. We have developed our technology stations — which we call Safe Entry Stations — to look like metal detectors, but are designed to screen for signs/symptoms of infectious disease and also for signs of cannabis or alcohol impairment. Additionally, we are expanding the utility of our Safe Entry Stations towards turning them into a medical device that can be used at hospital triage centers to monitor vital parameters of all the patients that are coming into the facility. The Safe Entry Stations are comprised of a host of multispectral cameras, sensors and edge computers that deploy our AI algorithms and as individuals come and stand in front of the station, within 2–3 seconds, the screening is complete and the output is given in the form of a red or a green light. Red light indicates that the individual has been flagged as exhibiting symptoms of infectious disease or impairment (depending on which algorithm has been deployed) and green light indicates that they are good to go.

Our technology has been successfully deployed at Fortune 500 companies, major office towers, industrial settings and major North American events such as Super Bowl Parties in Tampa Bay (where we had extensive press coverage including validation which was covered by Fox News), Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austin and Palm Tree music festival at the Hamptons. Our technology has screened thousands of individuals at these live events and also has identified individuals that that were COVID-19 positive upon administering a COVID-19 test. Furthermore, we are working towards taking this technology a step further to turn it into a medical device, which can be used in a healthcare setting to monitor vitals of patients along with presence/absence of symptoms associated with infectious disease.

Our technology to screen impairment can be deployed over the same safe entry stations and without a need for biological fluid, and can screen to identify individuals exhibiting signs of cannabis or alcohol impairment within seconds. Current solutions for measuring impairment are based on the use of breathalyzers, which cannot be used on a mass scale and at the same time there is a lack of a similar technology to monitor cannabis impairment. We are currently working on initiating trials in North America.

The other vertical that we are working on pertains to mental health. Currently, the diagnosis of mental health disorders is quite subjective, and we aim to eliminate the subjectivity by identifying physiological patterns using multispectral imaging that can be used to identify earliest signs of depression, dementia and Alzheimer’s.

How do you think this might change the world?

The disruption that has been brought on to the global economy due to COVID-19 is unprecedented and unlike anything that the majority of the people have seen before. This does indeed highlight the need for enhanced measures to ensure safe environments can be created that limit the spread of infections. If I could draw a parallel, then that would be the unfortunate events that unfolded on 9/11 as the world changed immediately after and metal detectors became commonplace. Similarly, safe entry stations will eventually become an integral part of any facility’s safety measures as these can be used to screen for individuals demonstrating symptoms of infectious disease or impairment.

The pandemic has also placed an extraordinary amount of strain on the healthcare system with a focus on remote health. As we work towards turning our safe entry station technology into a triage solution for healthcare, we are confident that these stations can eventually replace the initial consultation with the triage nurse that usually happens in hospitals. So pandemic or not, we envision these stations to be placed at the point of entry into hospitals and as patients come in, the stations screen for their vital signs, presence of symptoms and this information is sent immediately to the healthcare practitioners.

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

The one that we deal with all the time is that people perceive our technology as being a big brother that is monitoring people, tracking them, etc. However, it is important to understand that we are not using any personal identifiers or any face recognition, instead the AI is analyzing the data captured from multispectral cameras and corelating it with underlying physiology of whether it is impairment or infectious disease. Additionally, there is no data storage at all on our systems and it is only the log of actual events which we have access to (i.e. at 12:00pm, there was a green light). This completely limits any possibility of our technology acting as a big brother as even in a setting where someone hacks into our technology, they will not be able to find any personal data.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

Being the creature of that habit humans are, at times it appears that we are hardwired to perform incremental developments over technologies that exist. There are breathalyzers for monitoring alcohol impairment and since there are breathalyzers for alcohol, we of course need to have breathalyzers for cannabis even though numerous studies have clearly indicated that measurement of THC levels in the breath cannot be used to identify impairment as it is only the THC that causes the blood brain barrier which causes impairment.

Nevertheless, we have companies out there that are developing breathalyzers to measure THC levels. The previous multi-disciplinary research that I carried out as a biomedical scientist really helped me to think outside the box to come up with ideas that could potentially be explored to identify impairment without the need for biological samples. This laid the foundation of our technology where we are using multispectral imaging to capture physiological changes that associate with varying degrees of impairment caused when an individual consumes alcohol or cannabis. We have been able to identify multiple features that correlate specifically with cannabis or alcohol impairment, and this has formed the basis of our technology. It is the same rationale that has been used by us to develop our technology for infectious disease symptom screening, which we are taking a step further to develop into a medical device designed as a triage solution for healthcare setting.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

First and foremost, it is about people understanding the technology as it may come across as being too sci-fi since we are talking about structures that look like metal detectors but are able to identify impairment and/or signs of infectious disease. We have had several cases where skeptics of our technology became fans of it once they saw it live in action, so really, it’s about showing the world how it works and how it can be used to create safe environments — which can also lead to massive cost savings.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We have partnered with organizations all over the world including major defense companies, drug testing companies and technology integrators. We have also achieved CE compliance for the EU and ISO13485 certification for our safe entry stations. This helps in eliminating the barrier to entry, especially in the EU and Middle Eastern markets. We are also currently in the process of bringing onboard senior account managers for key global markets where we see a massive opportunity for our technology.

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?

I would say that it has to be my dad, Rajendra Kushwah. He is a CPA with an accounting practice in Toronto and as long as I can remember, he has always encouraged me to follow my dreams as long as the dreams are not about money. He has a strong belief that if you give your 100 percent and excel at what you do — the monetary success will follow you.

Prior to starting my undergraduate studies, I got accepted into some of the top North American Engineering Universities with fellowships covering my entire tuition. However, prior to starting my studies, I had a change of heart as I became extremely intrigued by genetic engineering and how it can pave the path to eliminating diseases (albeit, Jurassic Park — the movie, being the reason to what pushed me into biomedical sciences). I told my dad about it and immediately his take was that as long as I am sure that I want to go in that direction and am willing to give it my 100 percent then I should go for it. This became the premise of my biomedical career where I went on to become a Banting Fellow and eventually a scientist, research officer at the Human Health Therapeutics branch of the National Research Council of Canada with a cross-appointment at the University of Ottawa. It was the multi-disciplinary work I was involved in along with parallel developments that I saw happening in AI that paved the way towards the birth of Predictmedix and made me take the leap from being a biomedical scientist to becoming an entrepreneur.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

One aspect that we take immense pride in is that we are offering solutions to problems that carry a huge burden on the society along with healthcare. Accidents due to impairment not only lead to economic loss but there is the loss of lives which impacts families, and similarly we have all seen the impact of COVID-19 with over 5 million reported lives lost on a global scale.

Furthermore, when we talk about mental health, there are lives that are lost because a diagnosis is not made on time due to the lack of objective tools to do so. Our technologies — whether its screening for impairment, infectious disease symptoms or mental health disorders — have the potential to create safe environments and more importantly save hundreds and thousands of lives, which is the biggest impact we can bring to this world.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Partnerships — As an entrepreneur, it is not feasible to take care of everything by yourself or have your team members do the same. It is critical to forge partnerships with organizations and corporations that share a similar mandate and can be of assistance growing together. For instance, at Predictmedix, we have partnered with several top medical institutes all over the world that are playing a critical role in not only providing us with the clinical data that we need to improve our technology, but also in performing third-party validation, which is critical for business growth and technology certification in healthcare.
2. Shared success — The growth of any startup is not the success of an individual or a founder, but it is the success shared amongst all the team members who were willing to take the risk to come onboard early and work towards the same vision. The team needs to be comprised of individuals that can work together. As the company grows, the onus falls upon the entrepreneur to ensure that the success is shared among all the team members.
3. Learn to use the soft skills gained from previous work experiences and education — I started off as a biomedical scientist and now I am a founder of a tech company, which although is in healthcare, a majority of it is based on machine learning, AI and neural networks. I am not applying my expertise in immunology or stem cells but what I am applying at Predictmedix is my ability as a researcher to work with multi-disciplinary teams to solve problems, to critically assess data and come up with solutions to problems that are in healthcare.
4. Tenacity — Although you need the skillset to launch your startup, what you need even more is determination and confidence to move forward. You need to become the person who is ready to accept challenges daily with the determination that you will overcome it.
5. Enjoy the journey — The growth of a startup is a roller coaster ride and one must learn to enjoy it. On any given day you have no idea on what it will bring, it could be a new contract, a new partnership, a new idea, a frustrated customer or perhaps glitches with the product. You need to be able to extract the most out of it and at the end of the day be grateful, confident and happy at how things panned out and how you addressed it. Even more important it is to make sure that when you wake up next morning, you do not dread the day but instead look forward to how it will unfold. The growth of a startup has its ups and downs, but one must learn how to enjoy the journey.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I am a strong believer in giving back to society and laying the foundation where the future generation can be better educated, more -informed, and make better decisions that can improve the state of humanity and our planet. I have come across numerous teenagers that are passionate about making a difference but not knowing where to start. I think this remains a problem with the overall education system whereby greater emphasis is placed on repetitive tasks rather than original and objective thinking. Although the education system cannot be reformed overnight, I personally think that on a global level, it needs to have a certain portion of schoolwork (let us say 20 percent of the GPA) devoted to coming up with projects that are not about educational excellence but about making a difference to the world by trying to solve the problems that plague the world.

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

H.P. Lovecraft had a very famous quote: “I am a student of life, and don’t want to miss any experience.” This is something I have believed in all throughout my life. If one needs to grow as an individual or perhaps even as an entrepreneur, then it is important to learn continuously. Every day as an entrepreneur ends up being a learning experience and every person you come across imparts you with a viewpoint that in itself becomes a learning experience.

As entrepreneurs, we at times become so focused and engrossed in what we are doing that we cannot think outside the box. In order to succeed as an entrepreneur, it is critical that we understand how others perceive it. Moreover, as we understand perception of others, we should learn from it as it gives us an opportunity as an entrepreneur to tweak our idea/product/pitch further to ensure that ultimately the end user can understand the value proposition that we hope for them to understand.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

Health and safety issues in workplaces around the world result in billions of dollars in lost productivity with the primary issues being impairment, infectious disease (such as influenza, COVID-19) and mental health. At Predictmedix, we have developed AI-powered Safe Entry Stations, which look like metal detectors and can scan individuals within 2 seconds for signs of impairment or signs and symptoms of infectious disease with the cost being only a few cents for each scan.

Our solution for infectious disease screening has been commercialized with contracts executed with major corporations as well as some of the most prominent global live events. Additionally, our technology has received CE compliance for Europe and ISO13485 certification and we are currently working towards taking our solution further to become a medical device that can be used in health care setting to measure vitals and symptoms of patients that are coming into the facility. We are currently onboarding beta partners for our impairment solution and at the same time are working on a technology using multispectral cameras that can identify the earliest signs of mental illnesses and thereby eliminate the subjectivity that normally is involved in diagnosis of mental health disorders.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

They can follow me on LinkedIn at https://ca.linkedin.com/in/drrahulkushwah or Twitter at https://twitter.com/drrahulkushwa12.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.