Entre-preneurs: Interview with Azadeh Dastmalchi from Vital Tracer
Azadeh Dastmalchi is the CEO and co-founder of Vital Tracer, a start-up specialized in the development of smart wearable medical devices. She started the project with her master and PhD thesis at the beginning of 2010 while studying at the University of Ottawa. The company was officially established in 2019 in Quebec and she has been working full-time on it since then.
Azadeh Dastmalchi is an expert in Biomedical Engineering as well as AI and has been recognized as of one of the top 25 Women of Influence in 2021. Through her journey, she was awarded many prizes for her continuous discovery and innovation in the medical sector. Most recently, she developed technologies to participate to the COVID-19 responses.
YEP, Club of Entrepreneurship of HEC Montréal is very proud to present the interview we had with this inspiring person of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Entrepreneurship journey
On a personal level, what does entrepreneurship bring you?
“Lots of anxiety and stress! That’s the main product part of it. It’s a challenge, and it makes people, specifically me, get out of their comfort zone, which is sometimes good, sometimes bad. I learned a lot trough my experience like for example improving my soft skills, including skills to communicate better with the people, and how to negotiate, open and close a deal, how to work with subcontractors. Networking was also really hard for me at the beginning, how to start having a good conversation and follow up after.”
Do you think passion is crucial to start a business?
“It’s crucial, but it’s not the only reason to start a business. Starting a business is not only about a passion, but also about knowledge. It really depends about what type of start-up a person wants to launch. Is it in a deep technology field, or is it more in retail or any other field? Anyway, for me knowledge and experience would be the first key to success. And then passion and patience. People need to be patient because they will do a lot mistakes and it’s important to be able to learn from those mistakes.”
Could you tell me about an entrepreneur that inspires you?
“They’re not really entrepreneurs but I believe that the first one that inspired me when I was child, when I was seven years old, was a famous scientist, named Edison who invented power, and then the lamp. Then when I become more interested in biomedical areas, it would be the professor who invented the Artificial Cardiac Pump, Professor Tofy Mussivand when I started working with him, I learned a lot about how to become a renowned scientist. They both inspired me to launch my own project.”
Vital tracer, AI, healthcare and pandemic response
Vital Tracer is a medical device which monitors all vitals sign thanks to an optical sensor and AI. The technology, available as a chest-patch as well, aims to “increase patient safety and early detection with real time data and alerts”.
“The segment we focus on with Vital Tracers is senior. Our technology it’s more for caregiver and senior homes. We want to give a peace of mind to parents and children and as well as caregivers. We want parents to live longer, healthier and more independent. That’s our main mission which is achieved by continuous monitoring. If they have a chronic disease, we can detect it. In case of abnormality with vital signs, we can alert quickly healthcare providers or caregivers to show that this person is not doing well. Specifically, during pandemic, it’s a perfect health care monitoring device for senior homes.” — Azadeh Dastmalchi
What was the biggest challenge when launching Vital Tracer?
“The main challenge is linked to something very typical when developing any medical hardware technology, which is that it’s very time-consuming, and very expensive. Because we have to not only to build the technology, but also receive a lot of certification in terms of the accuracy of the algorithm, about the safety of the technology, about the quality management system, about different ISO certification, etc. So, it takes a lot of time to have all these certifications, but we needed also about a half a million dollar for all of them.
Then to build prototypes (around 10 to test that the hardware is working), develop the software, it also costs cost another half a million dollar.
Finally, to manufacture the product, it costs another couple millions of dollars. In the end it’s very expensive process and it can be hard to find funding!”
Could you tell me about a bit more about how vital tracer is using AI?
“Yes! The most important aspect where we use AI is linked to blood pressure. Instead of using a mechanical device, we use an optical sensor on your waist which uses AI. And so, that technology is using a deep learning method connected to the optical sensor to convert blood pressure measurement. That way, we calculate the oxygen level accurately and it’s working with all people with different health conditions and make the device calibration free.”
What was the impact of the pandemic on Vital Tracer’s activity?
“As soon as the pandemic started in January, our mentor from District 3 tried to push us to develop something related to COVID-19. I kept telling her that I didn’t want to take an advantage of the situation. And she said that it was more amount solving a big problem for the everyone than anything else.
Then, senior homes in Montreal started to be really impacted by the pandemic t because of a lack of management. That reminded me of my father that I lost when he was 62. Although he didn’t die due to the pandemic, I wish that I had my father longer. And after a couple of interviews with caregivers, shocked with all those losses. I realized that one of our main mission to keep parents healthier and independent for longer periods. I figured that by continuous monitoring, we could see if something was happening like a feve or, any abnormality with vital signs, like if the person cannot breathe properly, or coughs continuously.
By using and adapting our technology, we were able to detect that very soon and alert caregivers to test them for COVID and provide them adapted cares.”
Conclusion
What are you about your ambitions for Vital Tracer?
“We want to reach a phase of mass production of our technology and develop new kind of devices, especially for infants. We have clinical trials going on at some hospitals. We are also testing technologies in ICUs and post-surgery situations, which are very critical for us.
At the same time, we want to keep growing and having a good revenue by selling our devices to different companies and start-ups who wants to monitor their patients’ vital signs.”
Would you have any advice for students or just the readers on the article that wants to want to launch their business?
“Be patient, not only passionate, and take care of yourself. Not only physically, but mentally. I think, if you choose entrepreneurship as your full-time job, it’s a true roller coaster. Sometimes, people may get PTSD because they face very hard situation. Every single day, there are a lot of challenges. So, people need to take care of their mental health first then of their physical health.”
Thank you to Azadeh Dastmalchi for this enriching interview.
