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NORTH AMERICAN Newsline DECEMBER 01, 2023 | The Indian Eye 34

JO VARSHNEY MANASVI MAMGAI

CEO wins gold in Annual Stevie Actor says how the West is em-

Awards for Women in Business bracing Indian culture

ormer Miss India World and actress Manasvi Mamgai opened up about
how Indian culture and values were being embraced and adopted glob-
Fally. Manasvi won the Femina Miss India World pageant in 2010 and
went on to represent India at the Miss World the same year. She made her
debut in Bollywood with ‘Action Jackson’ opposite Ajay Devgn in 2014. She
moved to Los Angeles in 2016 and currently lives in the US and visits India
o Varshney, the founder and CEO of AI-enabled, R&D decisions de-risk- occasionally for work.
er for drug development has been awarded the Gold Stevie Award in In 2016, she assumed the role of the Indian ambassador to the Republican
Jthe healthcare category in the 20th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Hindu Coalition. Mamgai said in a freewheeling chat with ANI, “I have had a
Business. Varshney was among seven finalists for “Most Innovative Woman of very different attitude since childhood. I have always been interested in enter-
the Year— Healthcare”. The Stevie Awards honor the world’s top women en- tainment, dance, and drama but I was interested more towards contribution,
trepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run. This year’s giving back and world events. So actually, Miss India, especially Miss World
Stevie Awards for Women in Business received more than 1,600 nominations India, is more about social causes. In that too, even in Miss World, they give
by organizations and individuals for consideration across 100 categories. preference to contestants who do social work and there is a category. When
I participated in the Miss India pageant, there was a category called ‘Beauty
“I am honored to be chosen as the 2023 recipient of the Gold with Purpose’. I was very interested in that. So after dabbling in entertainment,
movies, and theatre, I got an opportunity from a US organisation that liked
Stevie Award alongside so many influential women in the health- my previous work. It was a Hindu social organization, which is politically very

care field from all over the world,” said Varshney. “This award active in the US. They work especially for immigrants, Indian immigrants.”
is a testament to each woman who has dedicated their lives to “So when an opportunity came along to work for them, I decided
innovation in the healthcare industry.” to try it out. I did one event, two events, and eventually, I realized

that I was doing something that could impact others in a positive
Originally from India, Varshney moved to the United States in 2010 to
study comparative oncology, genomics, and bioinformatics. Through her re- way,” the former Miss India added.
search, Varshney discovered the difficulties of translating drug candidates
from the lab to clinical trials. Varshney built out the concept in a hackathon, On how the traditional Indian culture was transcending boundaries and
won, and founded VeriSIM Life shortly after. finding favour with the West, the former supermodel added, “I feel that the
Varshney was nominated for the Healthcare Stevie Award for her leader- West has taken to Indian culture in a big way. Practices and rituals that we as-
ship in the novel use of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques sociate with Hinduism, as well as our traditional values, and food, are finding
to improve the value of drug candidate intellectual property early in the de- favor with people in the West. I stay in Los Angeles but don’t miss India that
velopment lifecycle. VeriSIM Life’s technology uses AI and ML to derive a much. Yoga features prominently in the public discourse there. There’s a yoga
drug development “credit score,” which radically decreases the risk of errors studio in every other corner of the US. The city drink in Los Angeles is the
and failure in the drug research process, improves clinical trials and early pa- turmeric latte, which we also have in India in the form of turmeric milk. My
tient application success rates, and ultimately decreases time-to-market for friends here are dying to come to India.
novel therapeutics. The West has also taken to our ancient Ayurvedic practices as a fish takes
“I am proud to be part of a new solution to address the cost and time it to water. The standout feature of our religion is that it doesn’t force anyone
takes to bring drugs to market, which has doubled every 10 years, resulting in to follow it or makes it binding on the followers to abide by the practices asso-
only 40 new drug approvals annually, while 300 million patients with unmet ciated with it. It preaches about living a good life and doing well.”
diseases await new therapies,” added Varshney. Continued on next page... >>

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