Cohorts: Saajan Patel MD'29

Saajan is a native of Cary, NC, who studied biology and global health as an undergraduate at Duke University. After a fellowship in Uganda, he and three partners founded Che Innovations, a medical equipment design and manufacturing company with a focus on using locally obtainable resources. They recently won first place at the 2026 Brown Venture Prize for NeoNest, a low-cost, portable infant warmer designed using common Ugandan household materials.

What first brought you to Brown?

One of the first things I found about this area is that there’s a huge entrepreneurial community growing across Rhode Island. Whether that’s Brown’s Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, the New England Medical Innovation Center, or RIHub  , there is so much opportunity that’s happening just within the local ecosystem in Providence. The second thing I found is that Brown puts a great focus on community service, and that’s important to me. The chance to work with people through Clínica Esperanza, the Rhode Island Free Clinic, or some of the health fairs, it was meaningful to see so many students and faculty invested like that.

What does a typical day look like for you?

Outside of attending classes, I usually take meetings and help plan our clinical trials for NeoNest. I’m also working with some other students in my class to develop custom large language models to help diagnose gastrointestinal reflux disease. Last year I worked as a clinical innovation fellow for Ursanex, which is a local physician-led advisory network that helps provide clinical need analysis, go to market strategies, and validation for early stage biomedical and life sciences ventures. 

What is NeoNest and how did you first develop it?

During my time at Duke, I took part in the Duke-Makerere University Biomedical Engineering Fellowship in June 2023, and I met my co-founders, Vivian Arinaitwe, Joseph Okileng, and Sophia Singer in Kampala. We found one of Uganda’s largest problems was preterm hypothermia, not just in the , but specifically for newborns being transported from rural villages. We worked with everyone from ambulance workers to hospital nurses and any health care provider that could provide us with advice.

We developed this device, in tandem with the local officials, that we ended up calling NeoNest, and it acts as a low-cost transport infant warmer, made completely out of locally available Ugandan resources. The outer container is made from a jerrycan, which is the same container that many choose to carry water around with every day. The insulation is the same type used within certain homes throughout the country, and all of the electronics are sourced from local markets within the country. Our goal is to conduct clinical trials within Uganda and provide the device to communities across the country. 

Even though I started this project before my senior year at Duke, it was amazing how I was able to shift everything over to Brown once I started here. The entrepreneurship community is so strong at Brown and in Rhode Island, a lot of people, including Brown’s Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, Rhode Island’s Secretary of Commerce, and countless Brown alumni have been really supportive of our work. 

What makes this project so important to you?

A lot of my interest comes from my family’s background. My father was born in Uganda, and when he was a child, he was expelled by dictator Idi Amin. He had to flee the country with his family and moved to England and eventually came to the United States. Part of the appeal of working on a project like this in Uganda was to revisit a part of my family’s history that has meant so much to us. 

I believe that NeoNest is a testament to how we’re able to create human-centered innovation in places like Uganda, and what a true, local health partnership should be focused on. Our company isn’t incorporated  here—its  based in Uganda. Everything can be built sustainably within the country and that’s something we're  proud of. There are other places that could benefit from this, so as soon as we’re able to get this into the market, we’re going to immediately expand across Uganda and East Africa.

What do you enjoy doing outside of your work at Brown?

I love playing basketball at Gano Park with my friends and going to the gym. My friends and I travel to New York or Boston on the weekends. During the summer I enjoy driving to Newport and spending time at Narragansett Beach.