We caught up with Dr Chaturica Athukorala, who along with Christopher Skene co-founded health tech solution Aurabox. Chaturica told us how winning the iAwards Start-Up of the Year in 2022 benefited them and their solution.
iAwards winners and Aurabox co-founders, CEO Dr Chaturica Athukorala and CTO Christopher Skene. Photo: Tracey Murray Photography.
Immediate benefits – raised profile, media exposure
The immediate benefit of winning an iAward for Aurabox – a cloud-based medical image storage and viewing platform for doctors and their patients – was that it raised their profile among the tech and health tech industries, Chaturica says.
“The iAwards also generated media opportunities which gave us national exposure and allowed us to connect with some potential customers,” she adds. “The win was also extremely motivating for our team.”
A chance to reflect
She points out that there was value in the “straightforward” application process itself. “It gave us the opportunity to reflect on our overall progress. As a start-up you can quickly forget your wins (big or small) as you move on to the next milestone.”
“Nominating for the iAwards, or any award, gives your team an opportunity to reflect, celebrate and share your hard work and achievements with others.”
Aurabox’s journey
The idea for Aurabox was seeded at the school pick-up run after a chance conversation between Chaturica, a radiologist, and Christopher, a fellow parent and a digital transformation consultant with experience in cloud hosting and digital health.
Chaturica had watched a close friend grapple not only with a cancer diagnosis, but with the difficulty of accessing her imaging records from three different practices so she could bring them to numerous specialist appointments.
This lack of a universal, accessible repository for medical imaging was something that had frustrated Chaturica during her radiology work.
At that chance school pick-up conversation, Chaturica mentioned to Christopher about her idea to develop a universal, cloud-based system to share and store medical imaging.
As well as being the perfect challenge for Christopher’s IT and entrepreneurial skills, it was also a good fit for Chaturica; she has an “entrepreneurial streak” herself having opened a yoga studio while completing her radiology training.
More accolades and business growth
Since the pair’s win last October, there’s been more professional and company growth. Chaturica won the Innovation Business Woman of the Year at the Canberra Women in Business Gala 2022 Awards, and Aurabox has grown to a team of five people across Canberra, Melbourne and Perth. More than 40 specialists and 200 patients use it to view, share and store medical imaging.
For Chaturica and Christopher, the motivation and reward of running a health tech start-up remains clear, says Chaturica. “It’s about working with a great team every day to improve patient care and outcomes.”
Photo credit from home page: Tracey Murray Photography.