Medical education in our country needs a fresh breath of air, through interactive & immersive technologies that can equip healthcare professionals with the knowledge needed to face a sea of diverse challenges !
Manasi Bavkar, our next pathbreaker, is Director and CEO of Medimation Education Pvt Ltd., a company that develops 3D animated teaching modules as well as interactive applications to enable medical colleges to teach their students in an engaging manner.
Manasi talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about taking the tough decision to pursue entrepreneurship after completing her MBBS, driven by the desire to improvise medical education.
For students, taking risks and charting your own course is not easy, but freedom and opportunities you get are worth it.
Manasi, tell us about Your background?
I grew up in Mumbai, in a nuclear family with my parents and younger sister. Growing up, we had a lot of freedom to access all sorts of books, movies and shows. My parents placed a lot of value on education, but never forced us to come first in class. Extra-curricular activities were equally encouraged and most importantly, our parents gave us a lot of time and attention. They listened to our opinions and we often had discussions on varied topics like religion, status of women, arranged marriage. My mother being a feminist and my father being super supportive, my sister and I grew up with the belief that we deserve equal opportunities.
As a child, I read a lot and learned to question things going around me. I was very shy and struggled to speak up in front of others. But I was very interested in science and especially biology. On the basis of that interest, I chose to pursue medicine.
What did you do for graduation/post graduation?
I did my MBBS from Grant Government Medical College in Mumbai. After completing my MBBS, I started my own company – Medimation Education, that does medical animation. I have been running the company for the last 10 years.
Can you tell us what prompted you to take up entrepreneurship as soon as you graduated?
I have always been interested in teaching. Taking complicated concepts and breaking them down to make them easy to understand is something that I am good at and I enjoy doing. I used to be the person who taught classmates and cousins.
While doing my MBBS degree, I felt that the way medicine is taught needs innovation. Most teachers used boring, text heavy power-point presentations or notes that made the whole class fall asleep. Once a guest lecturer taught us one anatomy class using detailed diagrams and that made a huge difference.
Once I finished MBBS, I was considering what to do next. The thought of post graduation wasn’t appealing. Around then, during a casual conversation with my mother, I revisited this thought. What if I went into teaching but in a unique way?
This is what triggered my decision to start Medimation Education (now WonderStand). The idea was to teach medicine using 3D animation. Medicine is a very visual subject and using animation as a teaching tool improves the learning capacity and subject matter retention.
It was a tough decision to make, especially considering that I had already completed my MBBS. But the moment I made this decision, I felt a sense of rightness, almost a feeling of relief. I knew that I was making the right choice for me. This career lets me use both my medical knowledge as well as my creative side which would have withered away had I gone for a conventional career path.
It was very hard in those initial years to justify my choice to the world, but my parents were firmly by my side. Overall, I am so grateful that I was able to make this career change so early on.
How did you plan the steps to get into the career you wanted? Or how did you make a transition to a new career? Tell us about your career path.
In my journey along this career path, my knowledge of medicine and my ability to creatively explain complicated concepts through my videos was my greatest asset.
However, I had no knowledge of how animation is done or how a business is run, when I started. A lot of my learning happened on the job. I had to learn through a lot of trial and error, by managing people, dealing with computer software and the general running of a business.
In order to better understand the running of a business, I did a 6 month, part time – Grow your Business course at SPJIMR, Mumbai. The learnings helped to make better choices and gave me a lot of confidence.
When you start out on your own, there are no clear paths. This can be both good and bad. There is a lot of freedom but also a lot of anxiety. Eventually, it comes down to your own priorities and what you are willing to give up to get what you want.
How did you get your first break?
We had been running the business for a year and a half. Animation is a time consuming endeavour. We were developing modules for the 1st year syllabus but it was taking a long time.
That was when one college we spoke to, told us about a specific need they had. Animal dissection and experimentation was banned by animal rights organisations. Thus, there was an urgent requirement of animal dissection animated videos.
We pivoted from our initial course and went into building this module for Physiology. That module was the first product that we sold. Currently that module is in use in 190 medical colleges across India.
Winning the “Power of Ideas” grant in 2017 as well as the National Entrepreneurship Awards in 2018 was very encouraging and inspiring.
What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?
Challenge 1 – Being a woman in a entrepreneurship space
When I started my business, the start-up community in India was growing and thriving. But it was a largely male dominated space. I was the only woman in my business category. This was challenging in two ways. Firstly, in the sense of not feeling included, but more importantly, that being an entrepreneur in this space automatically meant you had to be a cut-throat, arrogant, technology focused person.
I had to do a lot of soul searching to come up with a model of entrepreneurship that aligned with my views, that was rooted in communication, collaboration and empathy. It took a long time to build enough faith in myself so that I could challenge the standard model. My interactions with other women entrepreneurs really helped me in my journey.
Challenge 2 – Getting colleges to adapt new technology
Medical colleges ten years ago were very hesitant to accept newer methods of teaching. They were mistrustful and fearful of new technology.We had to make our modules very user friendly and introduce the modules as a teaching tool to overcome their hesitation.
Challenge 3- Starting out without much knowledge of animation
When I first started, I had very little knowledge about the animation process. I was very dependent on the judgement of the animators working for me.
However, I was very hands on and I absorbed a lot of knowledge just through observation and problem solving. Nowadays, I sometimes come up with a creative solution that leaves the animators stumped! Those are my favourite moments.
Where do you work now?
I am the Director and CEO of Medimation Education Pvt Ltd. We develop 3D animated teaching modules as well as interactive applications to enable medical colleges to teach their students in an engaging manner.
What problems do you solve?
We solve gaps in medical education. That includes providing alternate methods for students to understand animal experimentation and dissection and making medical education more interactive and engaging.
We make videos showing animal dissection and experimentation. These videos focus on giving the students the closest approximation of a lab experience.
We also have a theory module that is focussed on explaining complicated concepts in a easy, visual manner. Even if you have no biology background, you will be able to understand at-least the basic concept.
Watch and see- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cdVpDdjd4c&t=32s
What skills are needed for your role? How did you acquire the skills?
Breaking down complex concepts, presenting them creatively, project management and managing people.
What’s a typical day like?
A typical day includes some scripting and storyboarding for the upcoming scenes. I explain the content to the animators and answer their questions. I go through the videos that are ready and suggest improvements.
A new product line we have recently started is application development, so a lot of my time goes in translating medical knowledge to data that the developers can use to build the applications.
These are applications for medical colleges which let the student actually perform the experiment themselves.
Evenings are spent reading, writing or with my husband and cats.
What is it you love about this job?
I love the creative aspects of the job. I love to see my imagination become a reality on a screen. When we have worked on a scene for months and it finally comes together and looks even better than I had imagined it! That’s a feeling that is unparalleled.
How does your work benefit society?
Using our modules, future doctors can understand crucial experiments without sacrificing innocent animals. We hope to nurture more humane and empathetic doctors.
Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that is very close to you!
In 2017, we took up a very different project, completely unrelated to the medical field. We made a short film that showcased the proposed Sewri Elephanta Ropeway in Mumbai. We had a very tight deadline for it and everyone worked day and night to get it done. That video reached the PMO’s office and went viral. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va0ADd-N-Xk&t=1s
Your advice to students based on your experience?
We live in a world that is changing by the minute. This generation is going to face unheard of challenges in the form of extremism, AI, climate change and who knows what else.
In the face of this, it is important to know where to be flexible and where to hold your ground.
Taking risks and charting your own course is not easy but freedom and opportunities you get is worth it.
Future Plans?
I want to develop more and more products that are useful for medical and paramedical colleges. I want to be the go to person in the field of medical animation for education in India.
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