“Never let the odds keep you from doing what you know in your heart you must do.”
– H. Jackson Brown
One should not settle down for anything less. All of us have heard this, but in reality, only a few of us have paid heed to it. Most people listen to such statements but are never able to implement them in their life. Many people just simply stop thriving after achieving a good position. They become oblivious to their dreams and goals and get stuck in the position they have achieved. This attitude can be regarded as settling for mediocrity.
While most individuals settle for mediocrity and forget their thriving attitude, there are people who transcend the barriers of mediocrity. They rise above their limitations and aim to create a mark for themselves in the world. They want to leave an impression behind them for posterity in the world and continue to excel by exploring their potential. One such individual whose talent knows no bounds is Nikhil Arun. He has not only worked in different positions at Microsoft and cofounded an advertisement technology company, but he has also spearheaded multiple innovations during the COVID-19 pandemic that helped numerous people.
Arun started his career as a program manager at Microsoft in 2011 and worked on Voice Search on the Xbox and multiple entertainment products. He led the team that designed the billing system and advertisement portal home page at Microsoft.
Despite having a thriving career at Microsoft, the creative genius in Arun did not make him settle for just this job and made him come up with another trailblazing venture. In 2017, he founded an advertising technology company, In-Video Impressions, which made deals with content creators and artists, and mined audiences who viewed that content. He started the company with 14 employees, but it grew at such a terrific pace that it served some notable companies, including Lululemon, Duke Basketball, Fortune 500 Tech companies, and other wellness brands. It tracked the viewership of 55 million and had access to videos that had accumulated over 5 billion views in total. Afterward, he sold the company to San Francisco-based company, Vitagene, in 2019.
Arun had become an expert in driving the growth of companies. In 2019, he joined 1health as Head of Growth and was later promoted to the position of Vice President. Under his leadership, he assisted the company in the creation and innovation of multiple products. He led a team that included multiple domains, such as software, science, and operational professionals, to get maximum results for the company.
Arun did not restrict himself to leading and supervising the growth of the company; rather, he let his creative spark thrive during COVID-19. The predicament of healthcare services and their lack of availability to millions of individuals globally is not a hidden fact. The sheer terror and uncertainty of the pandemic, along with the lack of preparation of healthcare systems to deal with such calamities, left multiple people clueless in such a situation.
During such critical times, Arun, along with his team, developed numerous solutions to assist people. He developed an At-Home Saliva Test, which was the first of its kind, in collaboration with Rutgers University Labs. The At-Home Saliva testing kit is lightweight, portable, and user-friendly, and can be used without the assistance of any healthcare professionals. The innovation played a key role in providing immediate testing services to people from remote areas.
Another key idea that was proposed by Arun was Testing As A Service, an initiative that enabled organizations and companies to deploy a COVID-19 test on their websites with their own branded kits. During the pandemic, when a lot of people were getting infected, and there was a scarcity of resources, this idea helped companies and organizations arrange tests for their employees and staff.
There was a stark disparity in the distribution of healthcare services and vaccines among the population. Arun introduced the idea of Vaccine management, a tool for tracking the management protocols for equal and fair distribution to people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Apart from proposing mechanisms for the uniform distribution of vaccines, he also developed a product for tracking outbreaks of COVID-19 along with his team. The product was used by multiple institutions and commercial organizations to locate compliance and track outbreaks.
Arun would never have been able to come up with such outstanding innovations if he had settled down with his job at Microsoft. He would not have explored his potential that worked wonders for humanity during the pandemic. He created a mark in the world because of his innovations and followed his heart, and continued to thrive. He did not stop learning and kept on traveling the path paved by his heart which ultimately made him successful.
