Born and raised in Hyderabad, India, the son of a doctor, Imran was a problem-solver from a young age. As a child, he enjoyed taking toys apart to see how they worked, and as a teenager learned how to repair and build
AM radios. After attending All Saints High School in Hyderabad, Imran moved to
New Jersey in 1973 to attend
Rutgers University. At Rutgers he received a
BS in
electrical engineering in 1976, followed by an
MS in
biomedical engineering. He then spent three years At Rutgers Medical School before deciding to leave and work on the first
implantable cardioverter-defibrillator with Intec Systems. Imran attributes his pursuit of innovation to being inspired by an experience he had as a college student: “I had a summer job working at The Matheney School for Cerebral Palsy Children. They needed engineers to develop communication devices for
quadriplegic cerebral palsy children, so I built a machine for one severely afflicted girl. The unit translated her
facial expressions using pre-recorded phrases, allowing her to communicate.” ==Innovation and entrepreneurship==