E06: Engineering Health Equity with Tej Patel

What began as a garage project has grown into a pioneering platform that leverages engineering innovation to lower the cost and increase the accessibility of medical testing globally.

Tej shares his unique journey from aerospace engineer to healthcare entrepreneur and reveals how an initial focus on veterinary applications helped Fluxergy scale sustainably while building the infrastructure for human diagnostics. At its core, this is a story about thinking differently—about finding elegant solutions to complex problems and staying committed to a mission that matters.

If you’re curious about how creative thinking fuels technical innovation and how equity can be engineered into our healthcare systems, this is the episode for you.

In this candid and energizing episode, Tej Patel reflects on the origins of Fluxergy—born out of a public health class and grown through strategic pivots and purposeful design. Tej breaks down:

1. Why engineering-first thinking was essential to building a modular, scalable diagnostic platform
2. How starting in veterinary diagnostics offered a less regulated and more agile entry point to market
3. The importance of creating tools that function in both high-tech hospitals and low-resource clinics
4. His philosophy on creativity as practical problem-solving—not magic, but hard-earned persistence
5. What it means to lead with mission, even when market dynamics push against you

You’ll hear how Fluxergy’s diagnostic system is being used in places that often get overlooked, from rural U.S. communities to underserved countries around the world. It’s not just innovation for innovation’s sake—it’s about empowering people and systems to act sooner, treat earlier, and improve outcomes everywhere.

Creative Alchemy is a production of Straw to Gold, Inc.

Music written and performed by Aaron Peterson. Visit https://www.aaronkmusic.com/ to learn more about Aaron.

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