Budimir Drakulic is an innovator with a number of patented inventions in the area of micro-electronics. Currently, he serves as Chief Scientist at BioSig Technologies, Inc., a company which develops innovative medical devices.
Drakulic has more than three-years-long experience, which encompasses design, development and integration of hardware and software modules for biomedical microelectronics circuits and systems.
Budimir Drakulic has received the Crump Prize for the best bioengineering project at UCLA. Moreover, his technology innovations received two Frost & Sullivan awards in 2006 and 2008.
In this interview, Drakulic speaks about his work, shares how he keeps himself motivated and speaks about what makes him successful.
Can you explain what do you exactly do?
Budimir Drakulic: Well, I am an innovator who has a number of patented innovations in the field of medical devices for acquiring physiological signals and monitoring heartbeats of a patient. Currently, I work with the medical device company, BioSig Technologies on the development of an advanced biomedical signal processing technology, which can improve Atrial Fibrillation and Ventricular Tachycardia. More precisely, this is a surface electrocardiogram (ECG) and intracardiac multichannel recording and analysis system. The system designed to assist electro physiologists in making crucial clinical decisions in real-time by acquiring and displaying high-fidelity cardiac signal recordings with high accuracy. This system can detect cardiac signal even at undetectable levels. It has the aim to help identify appropriate catheter ablation targets – areas of tissue to destroy that create a heart rhythm disturbance (arrhythmia).
Some of my patented inventions include:
• System for, and method of, acquiring physiological signals of a patient,
• Amplified system for determining parameters of a patient,
• Apparatus for, and method of, determining the condition of a patient’s heart,
• Electrode for, and method of, indicating signal characteristics at particular positions in a patient’s body,
• System for, and method of, monitoring heartbeats of a patient,
• Systems and methods for evaluation of electrophysiology systems,
• Eeg system.
What is your attitude to failure?
Budimir Drakulic: There are two kinds of failure when it comes to innovation. One is which I call constructive failure. You can take an idea and fail fast in the early stages, before spending millions on implementation. During this time you can learn by your mistakes. This king of failure is OK. It helps you grow smarter; it strengthens your ability to make good decisions the first time around. I consider that this kind of failure is necessary for an innovator, because innovation is a learning process based on experimentation and this involves failure also. You have to embrace failure in your experimentation. Failure forces you to do something no one else has done before.
However, there’s another kind of failure, which I want to avoid at all costs. This occurs when projects aren’t carried out properly, the planning is not accurate, or mistakes are made in implementation or testing.
What does innovation mean to you personally?
Budimir Drakulic: I define innovation very broadly in terms of exploiting ideas that will enable us to create new medical devices which will help doctors to deal with Atrial Fibrillation and Ventricular Tachycardia more easily.
It’s a job I feel very privileged to have – ensuring that the USA is a great place to start and grow an innovative business.
How do you keep the momentum going?
Budimir Drakulic: Since forever I wanted to make a contribution to the advancement of medicine. I feel really satisfied and proud when I succeed in my attempt to find a solution to some problem that is crucial for the humanity. This is indeed what keeps my momentum going.
What makes you successful?
Budimir Drakulic: For me, personally, the impossible does not exist. This is what makes me a successful innovator. I always try to create something “impossible” in order to bring a solution.
Budimir Drakulic: For me, personally, the impossible does not exist. This is what makes me a successful innovator. I always try to create something “impossible” in order to bring a solution.
300 years in the past, people could not even think about the idea of flying home on a plane, with a cell phone in the pocket. From that time distance, this seems impossible. However, today this is our reality.