Fellow:Durgadinesh
Serving as UIF Since: Fall 2017 Cohort
School: Aditya University
Current Occupation: Programme Director for the National MedTech Foundation
Who Dinesh Is: Dinesh is a healthcare innovation strategist uniquely positioned at the intersection of engineering, business acumen, design thinking, and healthcare systems knowledge. He believes that equitable healthcare innovation requires bridging the gap between technical excellence and inclusive design—ensuring that medical technologies serve all populations fairly. His career trajectory reflects a deliberate evolution from solving technical problems to addressing systemic inequities in healthcare, underpinned by both analytical rigour and contemplative reflection.
Role Description: The National MedTech Foundation is a non-profit committed to driving advancements in medical technology through collaboration amongst students and early-career professionals across various disciplines. Dinesh orchestrates impactful experiences that unite diverse talents and drive revolutionary solutions, whilst advancing research into bias in medical devices to ensure equitable healthcare innovation. He leads strategic planning and execution, forging partnerships with industry leaders and mentoring aspiring innovators to foster environments where inclusive practice and evidence-based policy inform solution design. His work has generated 15+ startup ideas, established innovation centres, and is now advancing evidence-based policy recommendations for medical device validation standards.
Contact him about: Dinesh is available to consult, mentor, or collaborate on:
- Medical Education in the UK: Curriculum design, educational technology integration, and systems improvement in medical schools and training programmes
- MedTech Innovation Strategy: Device design, startup acceleration, industry-academic partnerships, and commercialisation pathways
- Building Culture & Community: Fostering inclusive innovation ecosystems, diversity in engineering and healthcare, and community-led problem-solving
- Teaching Design Thinking in Engineering: Curriculum development, workshop facilitation, and embedding human-centred design in technical education
- Interdisciplinary Education & Majors: Cross-disciplinary programme design, breaking silos between engineering, business, medicine, and social sciences
- Bias in Medical Devices: Equity considerations in device validation, evidence-based policy advocacy, and inclusive innovation practices
- Empathy-Driven Innovation: Human-centred design, stakeholder engagement, and translating user needs into sustainable solutions
- Systems Thinking in Healthcare: Complex adaptive systems, organisational change, and long-term strategic planning in the NHS and healthcare innovation
- Living Abroad Experiences: Career navigation, cultural immersion, professional development in international contexts
- Spirituality & Wellbeing: Mindfulness, resilience, and holistic approaches to leadership and personal development
Email: Durgadineshchintapalli@gmail.com
Phone:+44 7776938607
Dinesh's academic and professional trajectory demonstrates a deliberate integration of technical depth with human-centred inquiry. Currently pursuing a Master's degree in Healthcare Innovation at the University of Cambridge, he is conducting research that interrogates equity considerations in medical device bias—bridging his engineering background (bachelor's in Electronics and Communication Engineering, with research in digital signal processing) and business acumen (MBA, Lancashire School of Business and Enterprise) with the critical question of who benefits from innovation. His experience as a Medical Education Programme Coordinator with the NHS grounded this perspective: he witnessed first-hand how technology adoption in healthcare systems depends not on technical merit alone, but on addressing structural inequities and building inclusive stakeholder engagement. This intellectual journey informs his current work, where evidence-based policy advocacy has become central to his practice.
As a University Innovation Fellow, Dinesh catalysed tangible shifts in innovation culture within higher education. Rather than simply organising workshops, he identified a systemic gap—the absence of entrepreneurial infrastructure and design thinking literacy amongst engineering students—and co-designed solutions that created lasting institutional change. By facilitating multidisciplinary design thinking workshops, he generated 15+ credible startup ideas and established an on-campus Incubation Centre that continues to support student ventures. His work demonstrated that innovation ecosystems are built not through events, but through intentional community-building and addressing the psychological and structural barriers to participation. These experiences took him globally—from Bangalore to the University of Twente to Stanford—where he continues contributing as a Fab facilitator, sharing methodologies for scaling innovation culture. Dinesh's approach to innovation and leadership is fundamentally contemplative. He practises mindfulness and yoga not as wellness activities, but as deliberate epistemological choices—ways of engaging complexity with both intellectual rigour and emotional intelligence. Currently based in Oxford, he maintains an active lifestyle through running and cycling, and has refined his communication skills as Vice President of the Oxford Speakers Club, believing that articulate leadership is essential to driving systemic change. His passion for travel and cultural immersion reflects a deeper commitment: understanding how different contexts shape innovation needs, ensuring that solutions are contextualised rather than universalised.
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