2008

Dr. Vikram Sheel Kumar is an engineer, physician and entrepreneur. From developing ways to hear clinical depression in a patient’s voice to storing lifelong HIV/AIDS records on smart cards in Zambia, Vikram applies technology to solve important and interesting problems. He is the Chairman and co-founder of Dimagi Inc. that makes software for public health and education projects in many parts of the world. He has also co-founded companies in voice analytics (Cogito Health Inc.) and renewable energy (Potenco Inc.). Vikram is a National Institute of Health (NIH) funded investigator, a regular contributor to The Times of India on science and technology, and an impatient cricket fan. In 2004, Vikram was named the MIT Technology Review's Humanitarian of the Year and one of the world's 100 top innovators. He is a Paul and Daisy Soros New American, a founding Fellow of Media Lab Asia, a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Emerging Technology Institute and a Board Director of the Bienmoyo Foundation. Vikram completed a residency in Clinical Pathology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital where he was a Chief Resident. He studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, Columbia University, MIT and Harvard Medical School. Vikram has an appointment as an assistant professor at Boston University.