Brown CS Blog

The YC Fellowship, an experiment from Y Combinator in helping create startups, has just put a Brown University student on the path toward using computing to significantly improve lives on a global scale. Krishna Chaitanya Aluru of the Department of Computer Science (Brown CS) and his collaborators Akshat Goenka (Wharton) and Vamsee Chamakura (IIIT) have just been admitted to the program for their "DocTalk" project, earning $20,000 and eight weeks of advice from the Y Combinator community to transform their idea into an actual startup.  

Currently, a single doctor in India serves an astonishing 1,800 patients. DocTalk, which features an app co-developed with Brown University student Justin Brower, will enable doctors to maximize the number of patients they can consult with by solving some of the inefficiencies in the current healthcare ecosystem in India. (Further details will remain proprietary until launch.)

“Interviewing with YC was an incredible experience," Krishna says. "We felt so lucky to be able to sit across the table from people who founded and funded insanely successful companies and talk to them about our idea. YC calls you the same day of the interview to let you know whether you got in. We actually decided to watch Zootopia that evening to take our minds off of it. It was barely ten minutes into the movie when we got the phone call from one of the partners saying that we were accepted into the fellowship. Being accepted is the best motivation we could have asked for as we work on DocTalk over the next few months. We’re incredibly grateful and cannot wait to be a part of YC.”

For more information, please click the link that follows to contact Brown CS Communication Outreach Specialist Jesse C. Polhemus.