Dr Dev Malya Sarkar is an innovation strategist and open innovation practitioner in health technology. He works at the interface of research and practice to identify unmet health and care needs and translate promising ideas into meaningful, inclusive, and socially integrable innovation.

At IfM Engage (University of Cambridge), Dev leads the Innovation Environments & Infrastructure workstream for the Wellcome Trust Mental Health Catalyst, focusing on the structural and systemic conditions that shape the adoption and sustained use of mental health innovations.

Dev completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing, within the Centre for Technology Management, supervised by Professor Tim Minshall. His research examined the fuzzy front-end of digital health innovation: how start-ups and multinational corporations involve patients, clinicians, and caregivers in early-stage need identification, and what determines the feasibility and quality of that involvement. His doctoral work was supported by competitive scholarships from the Cambridge Trust, RADMA-UK, the Centre for Technology Management, the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and the Trinity College Henry Barlow award (honorary).

Before Cambridge, Dev led and supported product, service, and ecosystem innovation spanning diverse clinical needs with global corporations, start-ups, and venture acceleration groups across India, the UK, and the US. His applied work includes inventing India’s first preventive solution addressing cumulative stress disorders in clinicians, and developing an inclusive diabetes care business model integrated into the service delivery model of India’s largest home health service provider. He served on the board of HIMSS India as joint secretary and co-chair of the Innovation & Start-ups Committee, contributing to work on digital health innovation, entrepreneurship, and public policy.

Dev is a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) and was recognised by the Europe India Centre for Business and Industry as a EuropeIndia40 Leader. He is a certified bio-designer, trained in frugal innovation and MedTech entrepreneurship through the Government of India’s flagship Stanford–India Biodesign programme. He holds a BEng in Biomedical Engineering (Manipal University) and an MSc in Biomechanics (University of Manchester, summa cum laude).