Balaji Vishwanathan, CEO of Invento Robotics, with Mitra, its flagship robot. Image: Hemant Mishra for Forbes India

Balaji Vishwanathan (MS ’07) startup company Invento Robotics is featured in Forbes India magazine


Balaji Viswanathan started his career at Microsoft, and moved from there to develop startups in such diverse areas as robotics, education, and finance. He has embraced the true calling of an entrepreneur, using long term goals to develop companies that actively seek to make a global impact. This is exemplified by his Bengaluru-based company, Invento Robotics, which is currently using its humanoid robots to provide a myriad of services, from taking temperatures to collecting patient information to bringing medications and food to patients in isolation wards, in an effort to fight COVID-19.

His business was featured in Forbes India magazine as part of a series on companies that have pivoted to use technology to address the Covid-19 pandemic. The article discusses how  Invento has applied its first mobile robot models, Mitra, to perform tasks like collecting patient details, checking temperatures, and setting up video calls with doctors. Two new models, C-Astra and Robodoc have now been deployed to disinfect rooms and virtually interact with patients inside Covid-19 wards.

Balaji has recently returned to UMBC as a part-time Ph.D. student in the Computer Science program and will work on research topics that will advance the state of the art in supporting intelligent robotics.