This week, Bangalore hosted the Intel-DST Asia-Pacific Challenge, an important annual event on the technology and innovation calendar. The contest was won hands down by a team from India which designed ‘MediAngels’, touted as the world’s first online hospital.
Led by two doctors, Arbinder Singal and Debraj Shome, the project was about a global e-hospital that promised to “deliver quality healthcare at the click of a mouse”. Allowing for consultations with specialists from around the world on their website, exchange of information with these doctors by sending medical reports and through live chat, the portal was an attempt to deliver the power of technology and the Internet to make healthcare easy and fast.
The second prize of this challenge, co-organised by the Department of Science and Technology, was shared by teams from Indonesia and Philippines. Muhammad Endri Infanie and Rizky Ario Nugroho of Indonesia won the prize for their project ISARA, a sign language learning application, while The Philippines team, lead by Danielie Marie Chan Lo and Jam Lewis Pacana Penas, won the prize for their project Robolex, a robotic leg exoskeleton rehabilitation device.
The challenge was open to individual innovators and technology start-ups across 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The initiative aimed to showcase excellence in technology innovation and entrepreneurship under the themes of education, healthcare, energy, environment, employability and technology for the masses.
Ashutosh Chadha, Director, Corporate Affairs South Asia, Intel Technology India Private Ltd., who was one of the speakers at the inaugural session.
The world was changing into a global village, and at the centre of this rapid growth was innovation, he said.
Clarification
The organising team of Intel-DST Asia-Pacific Challenge has clarified that the MediAngels team was led by doctors Arbinder Singal and Debraj Shome, not Pooja Rachya.
