WoW Woman in Health Tech I Arshia Gratiot, founder and CEO of Eupnoos

Arshia Gratiot is the founder and CEO of Eupnoos.

Eupnoos is a mobile healthcare company on a mission to convert every smartphone in the world into a lung disease screening tool, via the microphone voice and breath.

Eupnoos derives from the word “Eupnaic” or the 'act of breathing normally'. Respiration is something we take for granted but millions of people are unable to breathe normally because of multiple reasons, the largest of which is air pollution.

Eupnoos is on a mission to convert every smartphone into a lung disease screening and health monitoring tool via the microphone, voice, and breathe. This means that 3+ billion owners of smartphones across the world will have the power to take their lung health into their hands.

Arshia, tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.

My background is as a technologist, having worked for both Nokia and Microsoft, the automotive and drone sectors – I love being a geek! I’ve moved around hardware, software, and now AI – it hasn’t been dull!

How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?

As I said, I’ve always had some sort of involvement with a technology of some sort. Although it may seem random but founding Eupnoos has been a steady progression through these various staging posts to getting here. What I have learned is that getting into tech isn’t so hard, it’s getting to where you want to be in tech that’s really tough! And yes, I’ve had lots of challenges, setbacks, and failures. But, so long as I can learn from those lessons, I can try to do better next time.

How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle? What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in? 

Between leaving India for college in the UK and then into the industry, it’s taken maybe 20 years. Talking about obstacles, I think the biggest one was from an engineering perspective. I’ve always loved tech and am a self-professed geek. I’ve never been intimidated by it and have been lucky enough to experience its transformative power, especially in emerging markets when I worked for Nokia. However, founding a tech company is a different kettle of fish but for purely practical reasons in my case as I am not a software developer, Ai scientist, data analyst or even an engineer. This meant that hiring the right people to do the job is difficult because you don’t really know what you’re looking for, then comes product development since you have to know how to code to understand what can be built, the limitations of open-source software and the time and resources it takes to build something truly novel. Curiously, being a woman in health tech (the industry I work in now) is not so much of an obstacle, as not being a clinician. I think most health-tech companies are started by clinicians; however, I don’t think the Eupnoos technology set could not have been developed by a clinician as it required the ability to apply creative engineering and human factors design to solve an established clinical unmet need.

What are your biggest achievements to date?

There have been some great moments along my journey – I am very proud of founding, not one, but two deep tech companies without being a technical founder. I have been privileged enough to be invited to contribute my thoughts on the application of AI, blockchain, and other emerging technologies to a number of areas of policymaking. It’s great to be consulted on decisions that have long-term implications on our day-to-day life.

What are the projects you are currently working on?

During last year I read an article on how women’s respiratory health was both considerably under-measured, and where it was being diagnosed, that diagnosis was often incorrect, as it would be based on male health paraments – women’s physiology is different from mens’ but they tend to lump together. Having come to the UK from India, where the number of women with respiratory issues is huge and the healthcare system nothing like as evolved as Western Europe, I realised that my previous work in the mobile telephony sector could be used to measure and then improve the respiratory health of millions of women worldwide. From that, we have developed that idea into the ‘Billion Lung Challenge’ where we want to enable 500 million women worldwide to take more control of their lung health – for free. 

Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why? 

Of course! Don’t you think the tech and investing communities have now realised what women knew all along – they’ve been missing out by not tapping into our ability and the contribution we can make? Isn’t it strange that a sector that has such a high ‘IQ’ can sometimes have such poor ‘EQ’?  

What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading? Eupnoos is focused on respiratory health, which connects/indicates so many other conditions in the body. However, understanding how to tap into all these indicators (biomarkers) and how they impact each other is still largely unknown. By tapping into 500 million smartphones around the World used by women, our AI will enable them to ‘see’ their own lungs, and so better understand what action they need to take. This forms part of an emerging movement called ‘hospital-to-home where a diagnosis that you would need to attend hospital for 10 years ago will be diagnosed at home. Between all of us working in this space, the opportunity to liberate the healthcare of billions of women is vast.  

What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?

Don’t be put off by some of the immediate cultures you may encounter. Learn, pay attention, find a mentor who can both guide and push you. And bear this in mind: there is so much still to do – there’s no reason why you can’t be one who does it! Last but not least be humble and be brave!

Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?

Have you noticed how the three most important/inspirational women in the UK in the past 18 months have largely gone unnoticed? Professor Sarah Gilbert and Dr Catherine Green developed the Oxford AZ vaccine almost as a side-hustle around their day jobs, and Kate Bingham out-negotiated everyone/everything to secure timely access to all of the quantities of vaccine we needed in the UK. I know statues are out of fashion right now, but really, don’t these astonishing women deserve more high-profile recognition than we have given them? If I achieve 1/10th of what they have done with Eupnoos I will be incredibly proud!  

Find out more about Eupnoos on their website.

Follow Eupnoos on LinkedIn and Twitter.

This interview was conducted by Anja Streicher, Chief Marketing Officer at Women of Wearables. Anja is passionate about women’s health and wellness and is inspired every day by WoW women in tech and business who are changing lives with their innovative products.