Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service
Vice-Chairperson (CSR) at Apollo Foundation and Apollo Life, Upasana Kamineni Konidela, talks about her endeavor to pursue wellness and creating a meaningful impact in San Francisco, CA. She is a next-gen entrepreneur from the Apollo Hospitals Family who believes in creating socialistic sustainable businesses that create a meaningful impact and also give back to society as a whole.
During the pandemic, she founded wellness startup URLife that aims to make caring for one’s health a simple, creative, and enjoyable experience. Upasana lauded the Indian government initiatives in curbing the pandemic. It is the Apollo vision that no child must be denied access to healthcare. With the pandemic surging through successive waves, children’s health deserves even greater focus with the vaccine available for the young ones posing a huge challenge,” says Konidela. Collaborating with NGOs to deepen the pan-India reach, the initiatives have gained momentum and larger dimensions in the wake of the pandemic.
Her grandfather Dr Prathap C Reddy is the founder of the Apollo Hospitals empire, revolutionised healthcare in India. While her father-in-law Chiranjeevi and her husband Ram Charan are superstars in the Telugu film industry. But her ambition is distinctly her own to bring wellness to rural and urban India, using a creative new approach.
We have merged and rebranded our previous company Apollo Life now known as URLife,” she says. Started during pandemic, ‘URLife’ shares engaging content, backed by experts, including certified medical professionals, fitness experts and nutritionists, who provide people with first-hand access to trending health tips, nutrition, expert videos, diet plans, lifestyle hacks, consultations, healthy recipes, fun DIY’s and personalized services that equip users to live a fit and wholesome life. If I can make an impact, support a lot of people in the journey, give jobs and make people happy about what they are doing, that would be fulfilling,” she adds. A ritual of giving back to society is imperative to me and I urge all successful people to do their part, adds Konidela.
If there were one change Upasana Kamineni Konidela would like everyone to adopt, it would be to have healthy eating habits. She prefers a grain free wholesome diet that comprises fresh fruits and vegetables. We need to treat food as medicine; our kitchen is the real clinic. She believes that technology should be used as a strong tool to heal the world. We’re focusing on prevention of illnesses and rehab.
She inspires many women out there with her creative ideas and helping nature. Besides being an amazing businesswoman, she is a doting daughter in law of the Konidela family. Ram Charan Teja, her husband, has been a great supporter of my work. I learn a lot from him, especially discipline. My strive to become disciplined about health, work and life, comes from my husband and grandfather, says Konidela.
The Apollo Foundation takes great pride in conceptualizing a breakthrough self-sustaining model to help rural India stay healthy – A Total Health Program. This program takes care of an individual’s health from womb to tomb.
