Co-founder and CEO, Kleinetics

While diagnosing and prescribing medicines for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) to hoards of pre-teens and teens visiting her clinic daily, gynaecologist Dr Tejal Kanwar spotted a disturbing trend. The young girls were looking for a quick fix with the pills, while ignoring her most important advice — to exercise regularly. Given the modern lifestyle of tech-savvy kids, locked away in their apartments in Mumbai, it was not easy to get them up and moving.

After extensively researching how exercise helps children meet their developmental milestones, she launched Kleinetics in 2016. Presently, they have more than 60 centres around the city. “Kleinetics is a combination of klein, which means small in German, and kinetics, meaning science of movement,” Kanwar explains. At the centre, children are encouraged to play, after warm-up, a set of games and sports that she has curated from across the world. Other programmes include ‘theraplay’ for children with special needs and in-campus sessions designed to suit each child’s physical strength, measured by their speed and endurance.

Like most mothers, she chose a less-demanding job after the birth of her children. She started lecturing at KJ Somaiya Medical College and Research Centre. Kanwar’s earlier assignment, her first job, had been as the resident doctor at KEM Hospital where she did around 30-40 deliveries every day, at times even working continuously 48 hours without sleep.

After a few years in teaching, she went back to her medical practice, where she met the teens who led her to her start-up. “If you care deeply about something, like I did about children’s health, then do something about it,” says the doctor-entrepreneur.