Tunir Sahoo talks about how an experience in rural Bihar led to his innovation.
Innovation has never been a sudden inspiration for me. It’s a mindset rooted in the values my parents instilled in me: discipline, curiosity, and persistence. At 15, I was selected under the Catch Them Young programme for developing a crop-protection solution to help farmers safeguard their crops from wild animals. That experience taught me that innovation can directly improve lives. Since then, solving real-world problems through design and technology has been my guiding force.
During my undergraduate years, I discovered the James Dyson Award and I began following it closely, reading the stories of past winners, and finding inspiration in James Dyson himself. His journey of failing hundreds of times before finally succeeding became a personal benchmark for perseverance. From then on, it was my dream not just to build innovations, but to also stand on that stage one day.
At a field visit
That dream became my compass during my MBA at IIM-Kashipur. When I went on a field visit to rural Bihar, I encountered a moment that crystallised my purpose. I saw a father holding his son, who was struggling to breathe. The doctor suspected pneumonia but with no diagnostic tools, he was powerless to confirm it. The nearest facility was hours away, and the family couldn’t afford the journey. That moment of helplessness stayed with me. Over the next weeks, I spoke to more than 60 rural doctors, all of whom voiced the same frustration: critical diseases were being diagnosed too late because there were no reliable, affordable screening tools.
That’s when JivaScope was born: an AI-powered, affordable, and durable device designed for early screening of respiratory and cardiac conditions, simple enough for anyone to use, anywhere. From the beginning, I knew JivaScope was not just an innovation; it was the kind of problem-solving solution the James Dyson Award stood for. That thought kept me going when the challenges became overwhelming.
Preparing for the award was as rigorous as building the device itself. I worked closely with my mentors at IIM-Kashipur to refine the problem framing, structure impact metrics, and iterate prototypes. I ran pilots, stress-tested the device, and gathered feedback directly from rural doctors. My peers helped me sharpen my pitch to meet international standards. Every step of preparation felt like a rehearsal for the Dyson philosophy: persistence, simplicity, and user-centric design.
Post the win
Winning the James Dyson Award is far more than a recognition. It is the fulfilment of a personal dream I have nurtured for years. Personally, it feels surreal to join the ranks of innovators I once admired from afar. Professionally, it has uplifted my journey, giving JivaScope global visibility, credibility, and access to mentors, investors, and potential partners. It has transformed JivaScope from a backpack prototype into a serious contender for scale.
As I now prepare to represent India in the international round, my focus is on making the prototype more robust, compiling field data, and telling the human stories behind JivaScope. More importantly, I carry forward James Dyson’s own philosophy that failure is a stepping stone, that persistence pays off, and that design can truly change lives.
My ultimate goal is to ensure that JivaScope, born from a moment of helplessness in rural Bihar and shaped by the dream of the Dyson Award, fulfils its promise to bring hope and health to millions who need it most.
The writer is pursuing Master’s in Business Management at IIM-Kashipur
source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)