AIT Nepal 2026/27: SurgExplore
Meet Negin Ghamsarian, one of the ten participants in the 2026/27 edition of the Academia-Industry Training Nepal program.
Interview with Negin Ghamsarian
“Surgical workflows face inefficiencies across training, planning, and documentation. Yet the data needed to improve all three stages already exists: millions of surgical videos and records are captured daily but remain largely unanalyzed and underutilized.”
What problem does your startup solve, and why is it important to you personally?
Surgical workflows face inefficiencies across training, planning, and documentation. Training still relies on the “see one, do one, teach one” model, exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic as vulnerable to limited operating room access. Pre-operative planning remains protocol-driven rather than personalized, while post-operative documentation is often manual and incomplete. Yet the data needed to improve all three stages already exists: millions of surgical videos and records are captured daily but remain largely unanalyzed and underutilized.
What inspired you to become a sciencepreneur, and what has been your biggest “aha!” moment so far?
Over seven years working at the intersection of AI and medicine, I collaborated closely with surgeons and clinical leaders, gaining firsthand insight into their challenges. My industry experience revealed a significant gap – not in scientific capability, but in translating research into practical, clinically integrated tools. Bridging that gap between what AI can achieve and what clinicians can actually use became the foundation of SurgExplore.
What unique perspective does your academic background bring to your startup?
My background spans electrical engineering and computer science, with a PhD and postdoc focused on surgical AI in a deeply multidisciplinary environment. I architected AI-based solutions for intraoperative irregularity detection, postoperative complication prediction, automated surgical video analysis, and domain adaptation across clinical sites. This immersion taught me not just the data, but the clinical workflows, the failure modes, and the human stakes. SurgExplore is not built around what AI can do in general. It is built around what surgery needs.
What’s one surprising lesson you’ve learned since launching your startup?
I was surprised by how willing surgeons were to adopt AI, provided it solved a real clinical problem and fit naturally into their workflow. The biggest barrier was not technology; it was earning trust through close collaboration, clinical validation, and demonstrating measurable value.
If you could host a dinner with three innovators (past or present), who would they be and why?
Geoffrey Hinton, whose persistence with neural networks laid the foundation for modern AI. Jensen Huang, whose vision at NVIDIA built the computing infrastructure powering today's AI revolution. And Charles Kelman, who transformed cataract surgery by inventing phacoemulsification despite fierce opposition. Together, they embody the courage to challenge convention, persevere through skepticism, and create technologies that improve millions of lives.