Priyanka Bhatnagar

Indian engineer revolutionizing rural healthcare through AI diagnostics

Priyanka Bhatnagar is a 28-year-old Indian biomedical engineer and founder of MediAid, an AI-driven telemedicine platform providing affordable healthcare diagnostics to India's rural population. Launched in 2020 during the pandemic, her system now serves over 12 million patients annually through 8,500+ village health kiosks. The platform's AI algorithms, trained on 20 million anonymized medical records, provide accurate diagnostic suggestions for 95% of common conditions at a cost 90% lower than urban clinics.

Bhatnagar pioneered the "Gram Vikas Healthcare Model", a decentralized system where local technicians maintain diagnostic devices while AI handles initial triage. This approach has reduced maternal mortality rates by 34% in partner districts like Odisha and Rajasthan. Her team's 2023 Nature study demonstrated AI accuracy comparable to urban specialists for detecting diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

In 2022, she developed the MotherCare app (available on Google Play), which uses voice-based symptom analysis for illiterate users. This innovation increased antenatal checkups by 67% in Bihar. Her recent work focuses on integrating Ayurvedic data into AI models - the first such system approved by the Indian Medical Association in 2024.

Bhatnagar's organization operates the Digital Health Academy, training 1,500+ rural technicians yearly. Her 2024 TED Talk "How AI Can Heal Rural India" has influenced global telemedicine policies. The World Health Organization now uses her "Community-Driven AI" framework in 14 countries. In 2023, her team deployed the first AI-powered ambulance network in Uttar Pradesh, reducing emergency response times by 55%.