From Medical Doctor to AI Startup Leader | Dr. Sithira A. | Hatch.lk Series

Walking away from a guaranteed career for life takes a specific kind of math. Dr. Sithira Ambepitiya did that math — and decided that treating thousands of patients across a lifetime couldn't compete with building AI that reaches millions.

Recorded at Hatch.lk startup hub in Sri Lanka, this episode follows the full arc of Dr. Sithira's story: trained medical doctor, returned to Sri Lanka, got caught in a gap between licensing exams and strikes, fell into clinical audits and data analytics, discovered he liked building things, and never fully stopped. When a health tech startup offered him a role with five months of funding left, he took it. Less than two years later he is leading two AI teams — one building AI agents for back office operations, one building healthcare companions for patients across Southeast Asia.

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WHAT THIS EPISODE COVERS:
- Why a guaranteed medical career wasn't enough — the local vs. global impact question
- How skills built in a medical ward transfer directly to startup leadership
- The family conversations that happen when you leave a career everyone understands
- What AI agents actually do and why they matter for everyday workers
- The "see one do one teach one" model for dealing with imposter syndrome
- How Sri Lanka can compete with Silicon Valley on AI without a massive budget
- Teaching 1,000 rural Sri Lankan schoolkids to code on a Zoom call
- Why the tools to learn AI are free — and what is actually holding people back
- The difference between "I have to do this today" and "I get to do this today"

GUEST: Dr. Sithira A.
Current role: Head of AI — AIGP Health
Also: AI Agent Lead — Vector AI
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sithiraa
Recorded at: Hatch.lk startup hub, Sri Lanka

HOST: Sheran Ranasinghe | @sheranstories
SHOW: The Creative Odyssey Podcast | @thecreativeodysseypodcast
PRODUCED BY: Odyssey House Media
CONTACT: thecreativeodysseypodcast@gmail.com
🎙️ Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/12SGsSsLz4DqlLFwxigjXX
🎙️ Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/pl/podcast/the-creative-odyssey-podcast/id1750306317

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

It's a bit of a weird story. I am a trained medical doctor, whereas if I was a medical doctor, uh until the day I die, that's a guaranteed uh you know a job, right? You don't have to worry about anything. I I could easily specialize and really excel in that field. But I thought it doesn't matter how great of a doctor I am, my impact's just still local, right? I can treat a thousand patients so what? But with generative AI, you can make change at a global level. Like no vacations, none of that stuff. Rarely, I think last month I took the first vacation a very long time. Like, because it's it's interesting for me, right? It's fun. I don't necessarily think, oh damn, I need to do this today, but I say, oh damn, I get to do this today. So that mentality of like we don't have anything. That's the only thing holding people back, also. I mean, if you have two hands, laptop, I mean it's not fair, yes. Some person might have more than you, but it is what it is. You can complain or you can no live with the hands that the cards that you're doing. Do it now. It's it's never been easier to learn. I honestly wish I was in university when Claude and Chat GPT came out.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Thank you for being on the podcast, Sitra. So let's go ahead and start. Uh, what do you do and how do you explain uh it to somebody who doesn't know any idea about this field?

SPEAKER_02 1:13

So, what I do, all right. Um, so I think who I am and what I do, it's a bit of a weird story. Yeah. Uh I am a trained medical doctor. I was practicing medicine uh in Sri Lanka, and uh I've always been passionate about technology. And after my internship, I got an opportunity to work uh part-time in a health tech startup remotely. Uh and that turned into a full-time gig. Uh so I started off in a product, then went up to operations, and then I became sort of self-taught in generative AI and ended up uh leading the team uh at that uh startup called He Health. Uh after that I was a generative AI lead at another place, and now I currently lead the team at my current startup where we build AI agents for any purpose or AI agents uh particularly for back office operations, the sales, finance, operations completely different uh completely different. Uh I still uh have my I still work, uh I have my foot in the health tech startup as well. But my full focus for the past year has been designing these agents and uh building the team up, leading the team. Wow, that's really cool. Was it hard for you to like adapt? Um yes and no. No, I I I know the skill sets that I uh developed as a medical doctor applies directly to my work right now, right? Uh problem solving is one thing, right? Right. Time management. Uh managing hundred different uh things that pop up and trying to you know uh reorient them based on their priorities. And that's what a startup is, right? There's a hundred different balls in there, and then you have to prioritize uh what you do today. Uh same thing I did in a in in the in a medical ward, right? Very cool. So I sort of translated that into what I'm doing right now.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

So was there any inspiration between uh you kind of making this change or was it something else?

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yes. So before I started my clinical journey, uh I was working in a private private hospital in a non-clinical capacity because I did my uh degree abroad. So when you come back to Sri Lanka, you have to do an exam, and at that point there were strikes. So there was a few years where I couldn't do the exam. So I started off uh doing audits, clinical audits, and that's when I sort of got into data, right? So my first I dipped my toes by doing data analytics, then I started building systems. I like building things. And even when I went for my internship, I still missed that. So when I got that opportunity to get back into the into health tech again, I took that chance without really thinking again. And this too was a massive risk for me. Uh, because when I checked out the uh startup, I knew they had about five months of funding left. Whereas if I was a medical doctor, right, uh until the day I die, that's a guaranteed uh, you know, a job, right? Right. You don't have to worry about anything. I could easily specialize and really excelled in that field. But I thought it doesn't matter how great of a doctor I am, my impact's just still local, right? I can treat a thousand patients up to so what uh but with generative AI, you can make change at a global level. Right. So uh it's a very hard, very uh hard conversation to have with people that know you, especially family friends. And I poop, like what are you doing right now? I'm doing, I mean, yeah, like what? But you're a doctor. Like uh my mother also it took a while for her to sort of wrap her head around uh that concept. So, what problems are you trying to solve now and and why does it matter to you? Uh my current startup, I mean, right now, pretty much if you go to any office, right? A lot of people are just doing a lot of boring mundane work, right? And that's soul crushing. Yes. Looking at the same Excel sheet, looking at Word documents, and we believe that's not necessarily what where humans excel at or what what humans were meant to do. And that's where AI agents come in, where they can do the repetitive, mundane, boring stuff so that you can do the human things, right? Be creative, problem solve, be more than just uh, you know, uh automaton of sorts. Uh and that's and the same thing applies to healthcare as well. Like as a doctor, we just do so much manual you know paperwork, and that takes time away from actually treating. We don't become doctors to fill out papers per se, we become doctors to treat. Uh, and that's a similar theme across everything that I do, right? Uh to make a change by you know automating certain things.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

That's actually a very interesting way of putting it. I don't think I've heard of uh heard that point of view, so that's really uh refreshing to hear. What challenges have you faced so far and what have you learned from them?

SPEAKER_02 5:46

So um again, I came from a completely non-technical background into a technical background, right? So there's a bit of imposter syndrome there as well. So I always try to benchmark myself against like other so we join hackathons to you know and we I win, like my team wants a we win, right? We'll win. Uh so that that the challenge mostly is external, right? So and I completely understand, right? If like I say a software engineer came to a hospital and said, hey, this is how you treat a patient, I'll tell them to go through off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh so I need to like build uh I sort of had to validate my technical skills. And we I have done so based on the projects that we've done, the products that we've built. Um so that was mostly not an internal challenge because I like challenges, I like learning new things, because learning new things is always fun, as opposed to just doing things that you previously learned. Right. So my challenges were not necessarily internal, it was mostly external. External.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

I just got done recording two days of my podcast, the Creative Artists Podcast, here at Hatch.lk, one of the leading startup hubs in Sri Lanka. Because my goal was to be able to tell stories of unique creatives here who are crazy enough to think that they can actually solve problems. To be here at Hatch and be inspired in what I'm doing, and to be able to tell these stories and have this uh studio and opportunity. I'm super grateful to Hatch. I feel affirmed in my mission to highlight creatives, and when I saw individuals from startups like inviting their own friends to be on here so I can highlight their stories in their unique way of thinking, every single one of them has so much uh insight to provide to anybody who's watching, who's anybody who's thinking that they're not good enough to do what they're doing. Seeing stories from doctors who have changed uh careers to running startups to journalists to doing these kinds of things, like it gives me so much hope to be able to share this to others to say that, like, wherever you are at, if you're not passionate about what you're doing and you're stuck in your own uh bubble or whatever, find communities like Hatch because it is gonna be the best thing that you do for yourself because the community is absolutely amazing. Hatch, thank you so much for the support you provided. I can't wait to show you the amazing stories and the insights your own people are going to share with the world. That's usually the other way around. A lot of people have imposter syndrome because of internal challenges, but you got that part down.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Yeah, I mean, I I all doctors I would say it uh have a certain level of imposter syndrome, so you learn to deal with it. Because you always think I'm not good enough, you know, or maybe I can't handle it, but you know, especially like in surgery, you know, it's see one, do one, teach one. You see a surgery, like let's say a scissor intersection, you do one and then you teach the next guy. So that training sort of helped me address that. So I knew, all right, I have this, how do I deal with it? Go for competition.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Wow. So you already knew your skills, you already knew the mentality, so that was just easy for you to just jump in. Yeah, it was a lot of work. It was like you had to prove yourself.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, but it's all it's uh definitely a lot of work. I mean, since for the last two years, it's been a constant, you know, headlong uh rush into this. Um, like no vacations, none of that stuff. Really, I think last month I took the first vacation a very long time. Uh but like because it's it's interesting for me, right? It's fun. So it's not I don't necessarily think, oh damn, I need to do this today, but I say, oh damn, I get to do this today. Right, you're passionate about it.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

I'm curious, how does your family respond to it now? Well, my mother's kind of okay with it, I guess. I'm in Colombo. So that's one thing. If I was practicing, I'll be, you know, middle of nowhere. Right. Uh I get at least my proper sleep. Uh, but they're excited about it because AI is kind of new, they don't necessarily understand what what it is I'm doing. Right, right, right. But it's something to do with AI. That's very cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Looking ahead, what impact are you trying to make with your company?

SPEAKER_02 9:50

So with the startups that I'm involved in, um with Vector, it's mostly about bringing Sri Lanka forward as well a bit. Because Sri Lanka has traditionally been quite backwards when it comes to technology, right? But with generative AI, we're able to go to toe with the big guys, even in the United States, without like a massive budget. And we're able to give the same service. Because we're well, we don't just sell the Sri Lankan companies, we're global. Right. But we want to give the Sri Lankan companies an opportunity as well to upscale themselves, upscale themselves uh and uh to meet like a global level. Uh in terms of my healthcare, the healthcare startup I'm involved in, it's public uh public health, right? So which I'm very passionate about, uh, especially in Southeast Asia. We have a large percentage of non-communicable diseases. Brown people have a lot of diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol. And AI agents are perfect for managing that through education, like a per your own personal doctor in your pocket, which can talk to you and it will remind you like, hey, it's lunchtime, I know, but you know, your blood sugar is a bit high last month, so make sure you don't you know eat. Or maybe you say, I don't want to do this. It then can challenge you on certain beliefs. Right. Because regardless of your educational status, people have very silly ideas about their health. Like, oh, it's diabetes or it's a high five. I'm feeling okay, so I don't have to take these medications all the time. Right, right, right. So then, like what we do as doctors, we counsel them. But how many doc how much can you do? We can't talk to everyone, right? That's true. And that's where joinative air comes in. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

We're so excited to share with you all the episodes that we filmed in Sri Lanka. We know a lot of you have been waiting, but we wanted to make sure that we did this really meaningfully because it really was an exciting time. When John first came to me and said he was gonna take the podcast to Sri Lanka, I honestly thought he was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

And so did I. I was like, is there any possibility we can get this in? I want to try to bring the podcast in, get to know people and interview creative.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

So we expected to have just a few conversations, maybe a little sparks of inspiration here and there, but what happened was so much deeper than that. We met so many people that not only you got to interview, but that also like came alongside us to help make these conversations happen.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

The crazy thing was this daring idea of going to a country, even though I'm from Solanca. I hadn't been back for like seven years, and all I knew was some people from school that I went to and some social that I was following, but didn't really have a concrete plan to make it happen. And some days we had six, seven episodes back-to-back recorded because people were waiting, and you were kind of facilitated that yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Yeah, so it felt really significant because not only was it that we were having like these raw and authentic conversations, but a lot of their stories resonated with drawn. And so it just was really fascinating to see them speaking the same language and to see like just this commonality of creativity and identity and purpose coming out as the themes of these conversations.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

You must be wondering when this could happen. It happened in September. And uh the goal was to get these episodes out by December. Oh, just that's yeah. Well, a lot of things happen, and I didn't want to diminish the work we put in and again the amazing gifts that we had. So we decided to do something really cool and we're gonna post however many we can a week.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

So LinkedIn, every single episode, you'll find a free PDF. It's actually a magazine that we developed. And kind of think of it like if you go to a concert, you get like the souvenir of what happened behind the scenes and just about the different artists, all those things. We wanted to share with you not only about Tron's journey, but then help you connect with some of the guests that we interview in Sri Lanka and then invite you on your own creative idea.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Yes, there's so much more that goes into or that fuels the podcast, which is this this mission to inspire people to create so that they can get more themselves and connect with ANHA. So to see that we could bring that story out of Sri Lanka creative out range of creatives was definitely a highlight.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Our hope is that whether you're living in the States, you're living in Sri Lanka, or somewhere else around the world, you'll connect with someone's story within Sri Lanka and it might inspire you to continue on your own creative god, I see.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

The link to the PDF for the magazine is in the description, and please check it out. They're doing really cool things that I really think you should be checking out to see their journeys. So without further ado, let's get to the episode. So anybody looking into either making a change in careers or getting into um the AI space and startup space, um, what advice do you have for them?

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Do it now. It's it's never been easier to learn. I honestly wish I was in university when Claude and ChatGPT came out because back in the day, if I didn't know something, it's not like these are like question-answer type of things, these are scenarios. I had to flip through multiple books, multiple websites, and even then I'm confused. Now you can just ask it. Similarly, if you want to learn generative AI or anything, it's just so easy, it's so cheap. There's so many resources online to learn by yourself. And uh, I do feel in the next few years the value of a degree by itself is reducing. I agree. It's mostly about what you can do, and if you're passionate enough, if you have the drive, doesn't matter where you are, if you have a like a phone or a laptop and some internet, the rest is on you.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

You mentioned um, you know, Sri Lankans are behind on AI, and I think in in certain aspects. Sri Lanka companies, I would say. Companies, sorry. So I I was thinking as far as changing the narrative, and even in US, there's certain people who are against AI and and then like myself, I'm I'm fully into it. I'm I'm grateful for it because I can learn so much about whatever. Um, how do you encourage people, especially people who are like talking always about the negative aspects of AI and and everything, and and how can we convince people to say it's here?

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Um it's always good to have an opposing point of view. Yeah. Because generative AI, as great as it is, does have, you know, it's uh everything is everything has pros and cons. Um I would always say, like, especially healthcare, there is it's only probably in the last few months, it's becoming generally accepted, like could be used because large players are getting into it. So I would always uh say, look at the benefits of it. Because the benefits far outweigh the risks. Uh but then again, there'll always be a lot of people that would be completely against it. I mean, I'm pretty sure when the motor vehicle was invented, there were people who were against the motor vehicle and said the horse is better. Um and it's those kinds of people you can't necessarily change their mentality, and I don't necessarily bother you know, talk I mean uh trying to convince them. Right. Um I always say find something that AI itself is a tool, yes, but you need to have use that tool on something. So you need to have domain expertise on something, it could be even farming, right? Right, right. Uh so I was I just did a uh session on vibe coding on Lovable uh for a hackathon that's happening in Saburgamo, right? So this is a bunch of school kids, uh eight to fifteen years old, relatively rural. It is online, I could not make it there. And they were just there were a thousand people in that uh call right on that uh on that uh zoom call and they were fully into it. And like one kid turned on his camera, he's like, hey, you just said no code, low code, but can I actually code? Like, yeah, sure, go for it. Wow. And like, how do you like actually do it? Like I said, plenty of resources online. If you want a completely free uh what do you call access to uh the latest sort of models of LLMs, uh Google AI Studium, completely free. You can even build stuff on Google AI Studium. Right, right. Uh ChatGP itself has a really uh good free tier, Cloud itself has a good free tier. A lot of these things, even the coding agents themselves. Uh GLM has a package for like six dollars a month, uh which is pretty affordable, I would say. Yeah. Uh the tools are freely available. You can literally start with zero zero dollars.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

So that mentality of like we don't have anything uh that's the only thing holding people back, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

I mean, if you have two hands, laptop, I mean it's not fair, yes, some person might have more than you, but it is what it is. Either you can complain or you can, you know, made deal, I mean uh live with the hands that the cards that you deal with.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Absolutely. Siddhara, thank you so much for taking the time. I I'm super grateful for you. Um all I gotta say is keep dreaming, keep creating, and keep going on your own creative Odyssey. Until next time, see you later.