Vishal Punwani

About Vishal Punwani

I\'m CEO of SoWork founded at Harvard. We\'re transforming how companies around the world work, by building all-in-one virtual HQs for high-performing remote teams.I was the top-ranked candidate to take over as the new Director of the MIT Media Lab in 2025. Full story coming soon.I\'m a left-handed ENTJ and hyper-optimist. I am generally 7 minutes late for things (there\'s a study about this.). I like to build, lead, and work with teams of intelligent and thoughtful people to solve big problems. I like blending hard skills (e.g. programming, data, medicine) with \'soft\' skills across the EQ spectrum. Spoiler alert: the \'soft\' skills are the most important and are what separates the greats from the rest.I am the #1 proponent of personal responsibility. At the end of the day - it’s all on YOU. Help from your network, family, government, society are all nice to haves. At the end of the day - only you can get you to where you want to go. I also truly do not care about politics, ideology, gender, etc. My friends and colleagues live all flavors of life. Beautiful friendships and shared knowledge can happen between anyone. So let’s be friends.Critical trivia:1. I started my first \'company\' with my brother when we were 10 and 11. We dumpster-dived for computers, and would refurbish them with pirated software and sell them to buy video games. Chrono Trigger, FF7/8, Breath of the Wild, and the Uncharted series are some of my all-time favs. Emergency medicine is my super algorithmic hobby that keeps me grounded in \'the real world\'. I do this a couple months a year in order to remind myself how fortunate I am to be in startup land instead of full-time medicine (medical culture is terrible - most docs won\'t admit it out loud).3. I lived at a 24-hour McDonalds for ~2 weeks during med school when I ran out of money to pay both rent and tuition (I chose to pay tuition ). Waking up for ice cream at 4am - can\'t beat it.

Experience

1. Alumni Advisor

   Masschallenge

   Jun 2020 — Present · Boston, MA, US

   I help MassChallenge founders and startups to \'crush it\'.

Education

• University of Victoria

  Bachelor of Science (BSc), Zoology/Animal Biology

  2007 — 2011

• University of Melbourne

  Medicine

  2013 — 2016

• Harvard Medical School

  Medicine

  2015 — 2016

• Harvard Business School

  Entrepreneurship

  2018 — 2020

• The University of British Columbia

  Bachelor of Science (BSc), Nutrition Sciences

  2011 — 2012

• Harvard University

  Executive Education Certificate: Innovations in Healthcare and Education, Health/Health Care Administration/Management

  2017 — 2017