Ashwin is the founder/CEO of Vaatsalya Healthcare, an award winning social enterprise, focused on building a network of secondary care hospitals in Tier II and Tier III towns in India. While 70% of India’s population lives in semi-urban and rural areas, majority of the healthcare facilities are in Urban areas and not accessible to these families. Vaatsalya is bridging this gap by building primary and secondary care hospitals in semi-urban and rural areas.
Winner of the BiD Challenge India 2007 for the best business in development in India, LRAMP Award for Innovation 2008, Sankalp Award for Social Enterprise 2009 and Frost & Sullivan Healthcare Excellence Award 2010 for its innovative business model, Vaatsalya currently has eight hospitals in Karnataka and three in Andhra Pradesh, totaling 750 + beds. Vaatsalya is the largest hospital network of its kind in India with a mission to build a nationwide network of hospitals across Tier II and Tier III towns. Recently AllWorld Network has ranked Vaatsalya at no. 5 in its list of 25 fast growing companies in India and Forbes Magazine has profiled Vaatsalya as one of the 5 hot startups to watch in 2011.
Ashwin has a medical degree from Karnatak Medical College, Hubli and a Masters from University of Houston, Texas. His prior stints include - VP, Business Development and Informatics at Triesta Sciences (Palo Alto/Bangalore), VP, Business Development at Molecular Connections (Bangalore/Rockville, MD), Scientist at Celera Genomics (Maryland, US), Los Alamos National Laboratories (Los Alamos, NM), and St. Johns Medical College, Bangalore.
Ashwin has been conferred the Ashoka Fellowship in 2010 (http://www.ashoka.org/Naik_ashwin), Ted India fellowship for 2009 by TED (http://www.ted.com). Dare Magazine India in its April 2011 edition profiled Ashwin as 50 inspiring Entrepreneurs of India. In 2008, One World USA nominated Ashwin as one of the finalists for the One World Person of the Year 2008, for his contribution in bringing affordable healthcare services to underserved populations.
Prior to starting Vaatsalya, Ashwin has had several years of experience in leading multidisciplinary teams in the US and India, both in a large company setting and fast moving startup environments. Before returning to India in 2002, Ashwin was part of the team that sequenced the Human and Mouse Genomes at Celera Genomics, based in Rockville, Maryland. At Celera, Ashwin was instrumental in coordinating multidisciplinary teams to compile and analyze the human and mouse genomes, leading to two publications in the leading international scientific journal, SCIENCE and three patents with the United States Patent Office. In addition, he has contributed a book chapter on Origin of life, which was published in the US in 2004, based on his thesis work at University of Houston.
