Powered to address challenges

In a major initiative to improve healthcare for women and children in low and middle-income groups, 100 innovators in developing nations, including 17 in India, will receive a seed grant of 100,000 Canadian dollars each, it was announced recently.

Funded by Grand Challenges Canada, with financial support from the Canadian government, selected are the ideas to develop and test innovations aimed at addressing persistent challenges.

Amongst them is the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre looking to assist rural women in India with the creation of a personalised, accessible, data-driven, women-centric strategy for sexual and reproductive wellness and clinical care in the form of a wearable pendant.

This technology will track health data on menstruation, clinical signs, symptoms, body temperature and heart rate and display information with different coloured emojis.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Jodhpur aims to empower adolescents. The "flipped classroom" provides sexual and reproductive health information via mobile app and allows students to study the material privately at home. Class time is then used for questions, deeper learning, analysis, clarification and discourse with a skilled facilitator.

Also included is the non-invasive tool used for detection and monitoring heart disease in underserved women in India by Audicor Cardiometrics Pvt. Ltd.

Non-profit organisation ARMMAN is implementing and testing a free teleservice in which counsellors guide parents of 960 children in Mumbai and New Delhi with severe acute malnutrition through direct calls on food, health and nutrition.

About six million young mothers in India face post-partum depression annually and as a result 20,000 women commit suicide, says BEMPU Health Pvt Ltd. Its project aims to develop and test Bhappy; a low-cost screening tool for postpartum depression that is usable on any standard smartphone and categorises mothers as healthy, at-risk or needs attention in order for nurses to connect mothers to clinical assistance as required.

Remote parts of Indian mountainous states like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are still facing age-old menstruation taboos that force menstruating women to inhabit cramped sheds away from their homes. Nyaya Health Nepal will combat this practice called Chaupadi in the Himalayan country.

Over the past seven years, Grand Challenges Canada's "Stars in Global Health" programme has provided $70 million Candian dollars to 661 projects, implemented in 87 low and middle-income countries over nine rounds of funding since 2011.