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Beyond Charity: After losing his father at age 13, an IIT engineer set out to fix a silent crisis: why 1 in 37 rural babies in India don't survive their first year. In this episode of the Earth Chakra sustainability podcast, CareMother CEO Shantanu Pathak joins host Chetan Bhattacharji to discuss a grassroots healthcare revolution that turned a personal tragedy into a lifelong mission.

Shantanu’s journey to fixing last-mile maternal and foetal healthcare reveals how that early loss completely reshaped his life. Determined to prevent other families from suffering from unexplainable, preventable health conditions, he realised that our health is "written in the womb".

This insight drove him to make a radical pivot: after earning a Bachelor's in Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunications from IIT Bombay, he committed his career to maternal care, completing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at IIT Bombay on women's health. There, he designed and developed sensors for cervical cancer screening, uterine contractions, and mental health with the single goal of moving life-saving tech out of labs and into the market.

He explains how CareMother is deploying an AI-powered, solar-charged point-of-care backpack to frontline workers. This invisible infrastructure has already enabled over 1.5 million tests across 1,000 villages—empowering nurses, midwives, and ASHA workers to predict high-risk pregnancies right at the doorstep.

Beyond the clinical data, this conversation captures the deeply human side of medical innovation. He shares several anecdotes. Like, how a simple technical pivot to solar power saved checkups when basic pencil-cell supplies failed, and how a feature that allowed families to hear and share a foetal heartbeat via WhatsApp completely transformed healthcare adoption in conservative communities. From tracing Shantanu’s time in China's telecom boom to navigating the funding gaps for deep-tech social enterprises, this episode highlights the collaborative ecosystem required to build a national health stack in India and secure equal opportunities of care for the next generation.