I’m a designer, turned startup founder, now a product manager.
I like creating things—essays, websites, scripts, apps and startups. Anything which is positive sum, and impactful. Born in India. Currently living in London. Found a home on the internet. Writing is thinking. It’s something I deeply enjoy. 10 years from now, or a 100, It might probably outlive me. This is an attempt at that posterity.
I’m currently working with Springer Nature building solutions towards open science — open research, open data, open code, open everything.
I’ve been a 3x bootstrapped startup founder in the past and come with 8+ years of experience building a wide range of digital products (SaaS/Edtech/Healthcare/Academic Publishing)—chatbots for high-risk mothers, note-taking apps, smartphone apps for healthcare workers and IoT medical devices for hospital safety, to name a few.
Here’s a curated list of all products I’ve built, and have helped build ↓
2024
Lead the launch and development of the national digital health program centered around patients with hypertension, stroke and diabetes in Bangladesh. This was earlier launched across 40 district hospitals in Bangladesh, and has expanded since then.
2023
Launched a Remote Engagement service for antenatal and postnatal patients and their caregivers in Indonesia. Drove 0 to 6000+ signups leading to 40% signup rate by improving the overall onboarding experience for RES across touchpoints.
Co-led the launch of Sahabat Nakes, a tool for healthcare workers to monitor their health education training. Set the vision, lead the product discovery and development of the first version of the application for Android/Whatsapp users helping onboard 0→60 healthcare workers in Indonesia.
2022
Launched a digital health education service for patients and caregivers education for families through WhatsApp. This service was made available for patients under antenatal care, post natal care, as well as patients under neo-natal intensive care units.
Lead the product development process, increasing the signups from 5% to 30% in 10 months leading to 30,000+ signups.
Health Educators Platform (HEP) Bangladesh — Worked closely with the product manager to launch the first version of the app. Supported the team through prioritisation, research and roadmapping.
Build — Build is an online cohort+community for anyone to go from employee to a builder to an entrepreneur. Enabled growth by 4x ($100K+ in revenue) through various monetization strategies by launching various initiatives (Buildcamps, Build Cohort, Build newsletter, Build on Chain, Build Weekend, Build with AI)
Other side projects→
BuildCamps Dharamshala —Learn, hike and camp your way to a side project in 7 days! (link)
Side Project Playbook — Free operational guide to go from ideation to launching a side project! (link)
Build Cohort — Launch your side hustle in 4 weeks (link)
PromptHero — Make your AI artwork 10x more nuanced (link)
The Hustlers — A curated weekly email with stories of people from around the world making money while having a full-time job (link)
Buildcamps — Build and launch a side project while vacationing in Goa (link)
2021
UVfy - Co-founder of Dverse Labs, an healthcare startup involved in preventing the spread of hospital-acquired infections. The IoT device (UVfy) has been instrumental in reducing the risk of infections for 100+ healthcare workers and 3000+ patients everyday across 5 hospitals in South India. — [(link)](https://www.dverselabs.com/
Other side projects→
Clarity - Note taking app for Youtube (link)
Metahuman - Bio-synthetic skin interface for emotional connection (link)
Build This - Platform to match Builders with Entrepreneurs (link)
Futures Festival 2021 - Achieving Positive Impact through collective journeys (link)
Campfire Book Club - Social Book Club experience (link)
India Fights COVID - Doctor-verified COVID Wiki (link)
2020
Designed Silly Stompers (link), a set of soft robotic toys for gender accessible play. Silly Stompers was my graduation project at Applied Labs, Delft University of Technology for an M.Sc in Integrated Product Design.
Other side projects→
Sterilo - Surface Steriliser for COVID-care hospitals (link)
Shake Up The World Podcast - Utopian Futures (link) Dialogue Techniques to improve outcomes of diverse design teams (link)
Double Loop Learning (link)
Reimagine India - Education Hackathon post-COVID (link)
2018 and earlier
Equarun (link) , a haptic assistive device for deaf-blind runners. Impacted 40 deaf-blind runners through safe, comfortable long-distance running.
dHive Labs - Set up a children-led innovation labs (link) across 4 villages in India. Mentored 1200+ children of age 8-15 who led 12+ social innovations.
Other side projects→
dHive Makerspace - World’s first children-led makerspace (link)
Solar 2.5D printer (link)
Solar EV Carport (link)
Remembrandt - Improving sleep cycle for Persons with Dementia (link)
Human Gait Detection - ML model for detecting human gaits (link)
dCode Wundermind - Screen free coding toy for kids (link)
Talks
2022 Generative Art 101 — Curiosity Chronicles — (link)
2022 Building Useful, Usable and Desirable Products - Seekwise (link)
2021 Penguine Latte Podcast with Paul LeCrone (link)
2021 Le saviez-vou…? Research Presentation on ‘Dialogue for Design Teams’ at the Faculty of Environmental Design at Université de Montréal
2020 Research4Tech broadcast across 11 LATAM countries — Product Feature for Sterilo (link)
2020 IDE Academy video tour of dHive Rural Innovation Lab with TU Delft Masters students — (link)
2019 Speaker at World Futures Festival (link)
2019 Reinvent Podcast - Design Thinking and Education (link)
2019 Global Youth Advancement Network Summit by University of Michigan (link)
2018 Nobel Prize Series Summit on Education Dialogues - Panelist
2017 SEE Talks - How children could be the frontier of social innovation (dHive Labs) (link)
2015 Pay Chen Show - Solar EV Carport (link)
Media
2020 — digit — dVerse Labs makes hospitals safer with UVfy, their smart modular sterilization tech
2015 — Toronto Star —International students add brainpower to research projects
Publications
Persaud, S., Prakash, S., & Flipsen, B. (2021) Dialogue for Design Teams: A Case Study for Creative Conversations Solution for Dealing with Diversity. International Conference on Product Design Education (link)
Prakash, S. (2020). Using soft robotics as a medium for gender accessible STEM education of preschoolers, TU Delft Repository (link)
Prakash, S. & Rajagopal, K. (2018) Rural Design Toolkit, BAIF Foundation (link)