A group of students from the Indian School of Business (ISB) here have designed a social enterprise, NanoHealth, which uses innovative technology to create local health networks for urban slum- dwellers, bringing cost-effective health care to their doorstep.
The students entered their business idea at the Hult Prize 2014, known to be the largest student competition in the world, and as winners of the regional event final at Sao Paulo in Brazil, have been invited to present their idea at the Clinton Global Initiative Summit in New York later this year.
This is the first time an Indian team has entered the final in the Hult Prize 2014 competition. The other six finalist teams are from France, Spain, USA and Canada.
NanoHealth’s idea combines innovative use of technology and a novel business model to establish local health networks and bring cost-effective health care to the doorstep of urban slum-dwellers which, in turn, will reduce the burden of chronic diseases in the areas of under-diagnosis, non-standardised treatment and poor prescription adherence.
The ISB students comprising the NanoHealth Team are: primary care physician Dr Ashish Bondia, business process re-engineering consultant Manish Ranjan, financial services and risk management specialist Ramanathan Lakshmanan, marketing and communications expert Aditi Vaish and technology design expert Pranav Kumar Maranganty. The team will use the Hult Prize platform and network to further refine the technology and launch a pilot in India.
The Healthcare Challenge set by Bill Clinton, president of Clinton Global Initiative, to tackle non-communicable diseases in urban slums, in association with the Hult Prize, is the largest student competition in the world. Over 11,000 teams from more than 300 universities worldwide participated in it. After a rigorous screening, 170 teams were invited to the regional finals held simultaneously in six cities _ London, Dubai, Sao Paulo, Boston, Shanghai and San Francisco. Healthcare leaders, public policy experts and global business leaders further narrowed down the field to six teams, one from each city, to move onto the global final.
After going through a seven-week programme in Boston, the teams will make their pitch at Clinton Global Initiative’s annual dinner to be hosted by former US president Bill Clinton in New York in September this year. The audience and jury at that dinner will include Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, heads of state and the who’s who in healthcare and social entrepreneurship. The winner at CGI dinner will receive a seed capital of USD 1 million for their social enterprise.