The Art of Knowing Where to Launch

IN 2012, DINESH SEEMAKURTY was studying biomedical engineering as a prelude to medical school when his career plans jackknifed. Seemakurty, then a student at USC, was visiting relatives in India when his grandfather fell ill and checked into the hospital. But there was no medical supervision there, beyond nurses looking in every six hours, and no one noticed that his grandfather’s condition had destabilized until it was too late.

As a former emergency medical technician, Seemakurty knew that lives often depend on the information medical workers get about a patient and how quickly they get it. “In these emerging countries—and even in impoverished areas of the U.S.—you don’t have that access to patient information,” says Seemakurty. “When you don’t know, you can’t conduct treatment.”

In 2015, Seemakurty, then 21, and his classmate Michael Maylahn, then