College Students Bring Targeted Media to Doctors' Waiting Rooms Shradha Agarwal and Rishi Shah saw an untapped opportunity to bring video segments with tips on diet and exercise to patients in doctor office waiting rooms.

Shradha Agarwal and Rishi Shah were writing an article on out-of-home media for their university's business magazine in 2006 when it dawned on them: This would make a great business. TV screens had become de rigueur in taxicabs, shopping malls and high-rise elevators. But the Northwestern University undergrads saw an untapped opportunity to bring multimedia content to a more targeted audience: patients in waiting rooms.

"My grandmother passed away young from diabetes complications," Agarwal says. "Rishi's father is a diabetes specialist. We saw how small bits of information at the right time and place can make a huge impact."

Their idea was to sell doctors' offices prepackaged video segments containing tips on diet, exercise and other lifestyle tweaks patients could make to improve their health. A TV screen in the reception area would broadcast this programming, modeled after segments on shows such as Today, while patients waited for appointments.