From Grief to Purpose: The Son Turning His Mother’s Cancer Battle Into Hope for Millions
Ankita Shukla | Feb 19, 2026, 23:00 IST
At the AI Impact Summit 2026 in Bharat Mandapam, a quiet booth showcases BigOHealth. Founder Gaurav Rajput, driven by his mother's cancer battle, is building a tool to guide families through complex healthcare decisions. This BHARAT-centric healthTech company aims to make quality healthcare accessible, especially for those in rural areas. It is a powerful innovation born from personal loss.
Walk into Bharat Mandapam this week and you can feel it right away. The noise. The movement. The sense that everyone is talking about the future at the same time.
India is hosting the AI Impact Summit 2026, and it’s big. Startups are pitching. Policymakers are debating. Tech leaders are throwing around words like scale and transformation. People are calling it the first major global AI summit in the Global South. And honestly, it does feel like a moment.
But in the middle of all that noise, Hall 6 has a small setup that doesn’t look flashy at all.
That’s where BigOHealth is.
No giant LED screens. No dramatic product videos. Just a young founder standing there, talking to anyone who’s willing to listen.
Someone who visited the summit posted about it on X. He didn’t hype it up with tech jargon. He just said, go to Hall 6. There’s a guy there who lost his mother to cancer last year. And he’s building something to help families facing that same fear.
That hits differently.
The founder explains how the tool works in simple terms. It studies patient records, looks at past treatments, checks research from around the world, and suggests possible paths doctors and families can explore. It’s built with hospital data, used with consent. It’s meant to guide, not replace doctors.
But what really stays with you isn’t the tech.
It’s the pause in his voice when he talks about his mom.
When she was first diagnosed, he says he couldn’t think straight. And that makes sense. Most people can’t. One moment life is normal. The next, you’re hearing medical words you’ve never heard before. You’re asked to make decisions you don’t feel ready to make.
He went blank.
Later, while working through medical data, he found something that shook him. In two districts of an eastern Indian state, three cancer patients had reportedly died because they didn’t get the right treatment in time. Not because treatment didn’t exist. But because information didn’t reach them.
And that’s when it stopped being a project.
It became personal.
The founder is Gaurav Rajput. He’s 24. He started working on the idea back in 2018 as a college assignment. Just another student project at the time. But when his mother fell ill, the idea took on weight. Real weight.
He saw how confusing the healthcare system can be. Especially if you’re not in a big city. Especially if you don’t have connections. Families from smaller towns often travel to Delhi or other major cities, spending money they don’t really have, waiting days for appointments, hoping they’re making the right choice.
And sometimes, they’re not even sure what the right question is.
So he built something he wished he had back then.
In 2019, he co-founded BigOHealth with his batchmate Shubham Shreyas. They were still in college. Still figuring things out. But they knew what they wanted to fix.
Their early focus was simple: make it easier for people in rural areas to talk to good doctors without traveling across states. An app that lets you book consultations, see specialists, understand options. From your home.
It took nearly a year to build the first version. And when they showed it to the Indian Institute of Technology Patna, they received Rs 25 lakh to develop it further. That support mattered. It meant someone believed this could work.
Since then, recognition has followed. Awards. Mentions. Even one in Vietnam from Google’s Vice President Purnima Kochikkar. BIRAC also honoured the work. The startup has been incubated and supported by several organisations across India.
But here’s the thing.
When you’re standing in Hall 6, none of that feels like the main story.
The main story is a son who doesn’t want other sons or daughters to feel as lost as he once did.
BigOHealth calls itself a BHARAT-centric healthTech company. The goal is clear: make quality healthcare easier to access for people who don’t live near top hospitals. People who shouldn’t have to choose between confusion and debt.
And in a summit filled with grand ideas about artificial intelligence changing the world, this one feels grounded. It’s not about replacing doctors. It’s not about shiny demos.
It’s about that moment when someone hears the word “cancer” and their world tilts.
So maybe the most powerful innovation at the summit isn’t the loudest one.
Maybe it’s the quiet booth in Hall 6. The one built from grief. The one powered by data, yes — but also by memory.
Sometimes big change doesn’t start with ambition.
It starts with loss.
And the simple decision to make sure someone else doesn’t have to feel that helpless again.
Image: X
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India is hosting the AI Impact Summit 2026, and it’s big. Startups are pitching. Policymakers are debating. Tech leaders are throwing around words like scale and transformation. People are calling it the first major global AI summit in the Global South. And honestly, it does feel like a moment.
But in the middle of all that noise, Hall 6 has a small setup that doesn’t look flashy at all.
That’s where BigOHealth is.
No giant LED screens. No dramatic product videos. Just a young founder standing there, talking to anyone who’s willing to listen.
Someone who visited the summit posted about it on X. He didn’t hype it up with tech jargon. He just said, go to Hall 6. There’s a guy there who lost his mother to cancer last year. And he’s building something to help families facing that same fear.
That hits differently.
The founder explains how the tool works in simple terms. It studies patient records, looks at past treatments, checks research from around the world, and suggests possible paths doctors and families can explore. It’s built with hospital data, used with consent. It’s meant to guide, not replace doctors.
But what really stays with you isn’t the tech.
It’s the pause in his voice when he talks about his mom.
When she was first diagnosed, he says he couldn’t think straight. And that makes sense. Most people can’t. One moment life is normal. The next, you’re hearing medical words you’ve never heard before. You’re asked to make decisions you don’t feel ready to make.
He went blank.
Later, while working through medical data, he found something that shook him. In two districts of an eastern Indian state, three cancer patients had reportedly died because they didn’t get the right treatment in time. Not because treatment didn’t exist. But because information didn’t reach them.
And that’s when it stopped being a project.
It became personal.
The founder is Gaurav Rajput. He’s 24. He started working on the idea back in 2018 as a college assignment. Just another student project at the time. But when his mother fell ill, the idea took on weight. Real weight.
He saw how confusing the healthcare system can be. Especially if you’re not in a big city. Especially if you don’t have connections. Families from smaller towns often travel to Delhi or other major cities, spending money they don’t really have, waiting days for appointments, hoping they’re making the right choice.
And sometimes, they’re not even sure what the right question is.
So he built something he wished he had back then.
In 2019, he co-founded BigOHealth with his batchmate Shubham Shreyas. They were still in college. Still figuring things out. But they knew what they wanted to fix.
Their early focus was simple: make it easier for people in rural areas to talk to good doctors without traveling across states. An app that lets you book consultations, see specialists, understand options. From your home.
It took nearly a year to build the first version. And when they showed it to the Indian Institute of Technology Patna, they received Rs 25 lakh to develop it further. That support mattered. It meant someone believed this could work.
Since then, recognition has followed. Awards. Mentions. Even one in Vietnam from Google’s Vice President Purnima Kochikkar. BIRAC also honoured the work. The startup has been incubated and supported by several organisations across India.
But here’s the thing.
When you’re standing in Hall 6, none of that feels like the main story.
The main story is a son who doesn’t want other sons or daughters to feel as lost as he once did.
BigOHealth calls itself a BHARAT-centric healthTech company. The goal is clear: make quality healthcare easier to access for people who don’t live near top hospitals. People who shouldn’t have to choose between confusion and debt.
And in a summit filled with grand ideas about artificial intelligence changing the world, this one feels grounded. It’s not about replacing doctors. It’s not about shiny demos.
It’s about that moment when someone hears the word “cancer” and their world tilts.
So maybe the most powerful innovation at the summit isn’t the loudest one.
Maybe it’s the quiet booth in Hall 6. The one built from grief. The one powered by data, yes — but also by memory.
Sometimes big change doesn’t start with ambition.
It starts with loss.
And the simple decision to make sure someone else doesn’t have to feel that helpless again.
Image: X
Explore the latest trends and tips in Health & Fitness, Spiritual, Travel, Life Hacks, Trending, Fashion & Beauty, and Relationships at Times Life!