Ridhi Tariyal

Ridhi Tariyal is CEO and co-founder of NextGen Jane, an initiative focusing on female fertility that empowers women to manage their own reproductive health without paternalistic oversight. She started NextGen Jane while a Blavatnik Fellow at Harvard University and was inspired after learning her doctor wasn’t able to conduct tests to tell her a window of fertility. 

Unhappy with the lack of answers, Tariyal, and a fellow peer, Stephen Gire, co-founded NextGen Jane sparking a movement to inspire women to manage their own reproductive health. With the success of this came the invention of what is now known as NextGen Jane’s Smart Tampon System, a device that can help track biological changes in a woman’s body, offers women insight into their reproductive health system, and enables them to manage their healthcare more autonomously. The idea is akin to mailing in any biomedical sample—say, saliva—for genetic testing. Women will be able to mail a used organic cotton tampon in a sample bag, which will preserve it until it reaches NextGen Jane’s lab for analysis.

Tariyal’s research and advocacy of women’s reproductive health has resulted in technology that will inform women of their own reproductive health issues beyond fertility, such as cancer and STIs, in between trips to the doctor.