Healthcare startups Silicon Valley

This article, originally posted in Metropolis Magazine as “Derek Parker’s Third Act, ” tells the story of Aditazz, a Silicon Valley design startup founded by Deepak Aatresh, an entrepreneur with a background in silicon chip manufacturing. Now in collaboration with Derek Parker, a renowned veteran with six decades of experience in healthcare design, the pair could be set to revolutionize the way that hospitals are designed and built.

In June 2011, Derek Parker boarded a plane at San Francisco International Airport. The veteran health-care architect was headed to San Diego to deliver the most improbable presentation of his illustrious, six-decade-long career. For six months, he had worked as a consultant with a Silicon Valley design start-up called Aditazz. Shortly after Parker signed on, the new company had entered Small Hospital, Big Idea—a design competition launched by Kaiser Permanente. The first round, in which the firms remained anonymous, drew more than 400 entries. Eight of the nine shortlisted firms invited to San Diego were industry heavyweights. The ninth, to everyone’s surprise, was the unknown Aditazz.

But that wasn’t the only surprise. During his presentation the following day, Parker dropped the real bomb: the hospital design that vaulted his unknown company into the round of nine had been created largely by an algorithm. Parker reached into his leather briefcase and placed a brick and a silicon chip on the table before the Kaiser Permanente jury. “I told them that these were two objects that were made of sand and baked in the oven, ” Parker recalls. “Then I said that one of them is dumb, and one of them is smart. And that the smart one is the one we’re using to build hospitals at Aditazz.”