COVID-19: Medical devices need your attention

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Editor's note: We don’t have a paywall for most of our stories on Coronavirus and its impact. Support us and subscribe here. Standing on the porch of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Mumbai suburbs, Diwakar Vaish, co-founder of Noida-based AgVa Healthcare, was trying to catch the attention of software industry executives. This is at the annual conference hosted by IT trade body Nasscom. Vaish’s stall was a side-show for startups to exhibit digital technologies in the healthcare sector. On a cool, breezy February day, the atmosphere was nothing as grim you would expect in a hospital emergency ward. Vaish's rig, comprising an iPad-like device on a short steel column mounted on wheels with dangling wires, was a cost-effective version of a ventilator used in critical care. There wasn’t much excitement about his solution, as few executives really understood the medical problem he aimed to solve. Today, a robotic engineer by training, Vaish is super busy.  It is not easy to get him on the phone, as AgVa's ventilator is suddenly in demand from all parts of the country. The company is running …