English
According to India’s Cyber Threat Report, 22% of all cyberattacks in the country were related to healthcare. With major data breaches that have happened in previous years, such as Star Health’s breach that compromised millions of patients’ data items, the scale of the threat is growing. The challenge isn’t limited to India: in the United States, healthcare data breaches affected over 20 million patients in the first half of 2025. These examples show clearly that modern healthcare heavily depends on IT systems, and for them to function, these systems must operate with near-perfect reliability.
Pranay Raj Kanakala, currently Worksoft Automation Lead at MytekX Inc, brings a unique perspective to this challenge. His career spans executing and leading high-stakes technological projects, from building national telecom infrastructures to optimising enterprise business systems. Having worked on telecom infrastructure that millions depend on daily, he understands what it takes to build systems where failure carries real consequences.
You have experience building both telecommunications infrastructure in Myanmar, serving 54.5 million people, and healthcare systems in the US. What makes these mission-critical systems similar in terms of engineering requirements?
Both require the discipline of engineering that ensures continuous availability under real-world stress. In Myanmar’s telecom networks, millions of people depend on the system for emergency calls, business and personal communications. In healthcare, SAP systems, billing errors can lead to treatment delays, and system downtime means clinicians will be unable to access patient records. Consequently, engineering for average conditions will not be enough, as you need to consider both peak-load and worst-case scenarios,.
From the examples you mentioned, it looks like the criteria depend on the system and the area of its applications. For VoLTE calls, the 99.2% call success rate you achieved in Myanmar is an impressive quality level, but in healthcare it may not be enough. How do you approach engineering systems where mistakes cannot be tolerated?
The methodology depends on the system and its area of application. In telecommunications, success rates were achieved through systematic optimisation and parameter adjustments based on real failure patterns. The methodology for zero-tolerance systems is similar in its goal but more rigorous: you build in redundancy and create automated predictive safeguards that catch issues before they impact users. For instance, in healthcare SAP, this means validating the handling of edge cases and ensuring that there are specific protocols for failures in case they occur.
Your healthcare SAP automation work reduced defect escape rates by 40% in systems handling patient billing and care workflows. How does the “zero-tolerance” approach apply in this particular case?
The key insight is that zero-tolerance doesn’t mean zero defects—it means zero undetected defects. When we automated over 200 test cases covering critical business processes, it meant comprehensive coverage of scenarios that manual testing would miss. For instance, for patient billing, we test for insurance claim rejections and partial payment processing. Moreover, we utilise AI-powered frameworks that predict failure patterns and generate test cases for edge conditions that may escape human detection. When you’re processing millions of records, even a 0.1% error rate means thousands of patients affected. Automation provides consistency and thoroughness that makes that unacceptable risk manageable.
You’ve mentioned that your automation framework helped your company secure new projects by demonstrating reliability. How do you convince organisations that quality assurance holds strategic importance?
It’s important to demonstrate that the zero-tolerance approach translates into tangible business outcomes. When you can deploy new features faster than your competitors while maintaining high-quality levels, this becomes a competitive differentiator. To some clients, especially those in healthcare, quality assurance methodology holds specific importance—they often already had experience with implementations that broke their processes or corrupted patient data. The zero-tolerance approach provides a clear way to avoid it. Currently, I’m leading and mentoring a team of 15 consultants, turning my approach into a replicable business asset that can be used at scale.
Currently, India has 20% of the world’s chip design engineers and is emerging as a global digital infrastructure hub. Having worked for major operators like Airtel, Vodafone, Telenor, and Ooredoo, and now with healthcare systems in the US, how would you define the unique perspective Indian engineers bring to building critical global infrastructure?
Indian engineers excel at building mission-critical systems because we’re trained to deliver world-class reliability under challenging constraints. They also are comfortable with complexity, such as managing multi-vendor environments, bridging legacy and modern systems, and optimising across layers because Indian infrastructure often demands it. As India’s digital platforms become global models and Indian engineers lead critical projects worldwide, we’re demonstrating that the discipline learned building telecommunications for billions translates directly to healthcare, finance, and other sectors where trust and reliability define success.
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