STORY CREDITS

Writer/Editor: Shivangi Vasudev Bhatt

Photo: Media and Communication, IIT Gandhinagar

During her free time, Mekdes likes to interact with friends, play football, and do yoga. Her hobbies include reading books, writing poems, painting, playing the harp, and cooking.

How far can you go to fix a problem so that it doesn’t adversely affect others the way it impacted your life? Mekdes Wubet from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, decided to join the field of Biomedical Engineering after she saw a critical error in her mother’s medical examination result, which had happened due to a maintenance issue in one of the medical devices of that Hospital. This incident inspired her to fix and eliminate those kinds of problems so that it doesn’t happen to other patients.

Mekdes joined IITGN’s MTech programme in 2021 as an international student. Currently, she’s doing her research on ultrasound imaging devices for the detection of different disorders in the human body, especially in the human muscle system. In the long run, she wants to open a company of medical devices that provides designing, fabrication, installation, and maintenance solutions. She also wishes to start a college of Biomedical Engineering discipline that offers free of cost education to help people, especially in rural areas.

Sharing her journey at IITGN, Mekdes says, “Although the weather, the food, and the culture here are different from mine, I didn’t face any challenge in interacting with people. Many of them helped me a lot to feel comfortable on the campus, which helped me focus on my studies with full strength. There were struggles, but here I learnt many lessons beyond education. I can say that the IITGN community, starting from Guards to Professors, all have a good heart to help you in anything. With the support of my advisor, I am doing my best to achieve the goal of my dream.”

KNOW MORE ABOUT MEKDES
  • Motto for life: Being a good person doesn’t cost anything. Keep belief, hope, and love in your life. Everything will happen for good. Accept it as it is.
  • One thing that you would not exchange for anything: Helping any human being that needs help in any situation and living for others.
  • Describe yourself in one word: Dutiful, Expectant (Dreamer), Giver, Happy.
  • Secret sauce for managing studies and extra-curricular activities: When you get many negative comments on your work, take them to do more and convert them into an output. Do your work in silent mode and talk at the time of the result.
  • The most important skills you have learnt at IITGN: Management skills and collaboration to work with each other. Keep doing hard work even after getting satisfactory results.