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Thermaiscan Technology: Reimagining the future of Screening with AI and Thermal Technology

The alarming rate at which breast cancer is increasing among women has incited a global health concern. A recent survey by BCRF states that approximately 685,000 people lost their lives in 2020 due to this invasive disease, making it one of the leading causes of death among females.

However, there are consecutive and widespread efforts to create awareness about symptoms of breast cancer and how adopting a healthy lifestyle lowers the risk of developing said cancer. Which combined with screening programs, reduces the risk of late detection and enhances survival chances drastically.

It is quite comforting to know that the entire community is giving a fillip to the verve of brainstorming approaches that could abate the occurrence of breast cancer. In addition, a lot of technological advancement has taken place over the past decade, which has further expedited the screening, diagnosis and treatment of life-threatening diseases like cancer.

A Stockholm-based health-tech firm, Thermaiscan Technology AB, is innovating within the predictive medicine field, combining AI with thermal technology. Inspired by Hippocrates, often referred to as the father of modern medicine, the team has adopted the age-old theory of using heat. Heat, or lack thereof, has long been used as an indicator for finding disease.

Thermaiscan’s prime focus is to solve the global problem with late detection of breast cancer development. Late detection is the leading cause of breast cancer related deaths. The Thermaiscan Breast Cancer Pre-screening solution uses a smartphone with thermal sensors and AI models that performs the analysis of the thermal images. If any abnormality is detected, the patient shall be conferred to medical specialist care. Early detection can save lives as well as lowering the cost for care.

The tool empowers first-line contact physicians, non-specialists and remote doctors in their mission to provide professional care. Healthcare personnel can easily perform thermal screenings according to the Thermaiscan protocol with the smartphone. They will then receive the AI analysis, which provides valuable information about the health status in the chest of women. The pocket-sized, non-invasive, non-toxic, and cost-efficient screening tool is designed to perform comfortable breast cancer pre-screening on women of all ages.

There is currently an unfair distribution of specialist and breast cancer screening tools in many countries. The fact is that many women do not even have access to standard breast cancer screenings, especially women in rural areas and those without universal health coverage.

Thermaiscan Pre-screening can be life saving for these women as it can be used in remote settings and in primary healthcare.

Women that want to be proactive can easily take advantage of the latest state-of-the-art technology. Tools like the Thermaiscan Pre-screening can work as a complementary tool to already existing screening processes. It is not intended to replace or compete with mammography, rather it will provide more data to specialists in order to detect early stage breast cancer.

Thermaiscan Technology AB is part of the India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre, established to develop an ecosystem of open innovation for start-ups and healthcare delivery stakeholders. Through the Centre, Thermaiscan Technology is now also a part of A.Catalyst network – an interconnected and dynamic global network of more than 20 AstraZeneca health innovation hubs, made up of Physical locations and virtual partnerships. The network embodies the commitment to Growth Through Innovation as ‘a catalyst’ to develop new solutions for patients. It aims to address healthcare challenges, increase access to healthcare and scale and showcase patient-enabled innovation through partnerships within the health ecosystem.

The company’s journey has been a buoyant one. Together with AIIMS Jodhpur, India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre (A partnership between India’s premier healthcare institutions AIIMS Delhi, AIIMS Jodhpur and Business Sweden, closely guided by the Ministry of Health (including ICMR) in Sweden and India, along with Knowledge Partner AstraZeneca as well as Technology Partner NASSCOM CoE IoT & AI, A-Catalyst Network, Atal Innovation Mission, AGNIi (Invest India) and StartUp India and others), and many more in the pipeline soon to be unveiled, Thermaiscan is now preparing for what is needed – such as a clinical study – to launch their first product in the market.

Thermaiscan has won prestigious awards, including an Innovation Challenge organized by the India-Sweden Innovation Centre, the Nexer Dream Big challenge and Ignite Master of B2B Collaboration 2021 – Private Sector. To date, Thermaiscan Technology has expanded its presence across Sweden, Armenia, India, Germany, and Singapore. It has established collaboration with

leading institutions like AstraZeneca, Labz.AI, Karolinska Institutet Innovation AB, Business Sweden, Vinnova, ENOX, Almi, Erebouni Medical Center- Breast Unit, and more.

Thermaiscan intends to remain committed to unearthing the true potential of HealthTech and predictive medicine via its technical competence within thermal imaging and AI. The team is looking forward to initiating associations with innovators, leaders, and investors who envisage revolutionizing healthcare for the benefit of society.

Global supply planning enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning

One of the most critical tasks for any manufacturing organization is balancing assets (e.g., capacity, materials, people) with demand. Supply planners must determine how best to meet the demand given the assets available, production constraints, and distribution network complexities and policies. This encompasses multiple activities that aim to meet future demand in the best possible way.

The case for automation

In today’s supply chain, complexity and uncertainty continue intensify because of the rapid expansion of product portfolios to cater to wider customer choice, while product lifecycles are shrinking. Meanwhile, channels are multiplying as e-commerce starts to dominate across industries, making fulfillment significantly more challenging.

To manage supplies, supply planners must look outside company walls and analyze the ecosystem that is driving the variability and volatility. Organizations need a new paradigm where planning and execution go beyond the enterprise and embrace the broader ecosystem. 75% of a supply planner’s time should be spent on medium to long term decisions, but currently they spend ~75% of their time reacting to daily supply chain disruptions.

Typically, organizations that automate supply planning can achieve several key benefits:

  • Optimize their profits and margins while meeting the demand
  • Reduce overall costs
  • Utilize their resources (assets and key raw materials) more effectively
  • Be better prepared for the future by considering what-ifs

The current supply planning environment

Supply planning has a direct impact on an organization’s P&L. But a common challenge facing business and supply chain leaders is they don’t have enough information to make informed decisions – a mismatch of manual and digital systems mean information is trapped within functional silos so decision-making is hampered by an incomplete picture.

Added to this, supply chain complexity makes it difficult to evaluate alternatives, trade-offs, and scenarios to arrive at the best or right decision.

Current supply chain planning techniques focus on functional excellence: isolating one piece of the supply chain at a time, fine-tuning, it and then excelling at it. On the surface, this approach should result in good results, operating at peak efficiency from end to end. But it does not. This is because, between each function, misalignment compounds to create operational blindness. Focusing on capacity planning without understanding the impact on inventory is an example of this lack of transparency, as is focusing on asset utilization without connecting it to the supply plan.

In demand planning, the inability to react to external changes, promotions, and seasonality leads to higher inventory levels. Organizational targets, sales targets, and the inability to defend forecast predictions constantly leads to over-production.

Traditional organizations use multiple different tools across supply planning, creating multiple problems and the need for an additional planner to manage and run these tools. Also, different master data repositories result in either incomplete or stagnant masters for planning.

Rethinking supply planning with AI

In today’s complex supply chain planning environment, quick execution and incisive decision-making are becoming vital as customers demand higher service levels and responsive supply chains. As such, organizations have started to rethink the traditional planning paradigm to meet these challenges. In recent years, network planners have grown in popularity as companies try to address ever-changing supply priorities and find ways to resolve them profitably.

Imagine a closed-loop adaptive planning environment that automatically provides prioritized intelligent exceptions at the start of every day and runs real-time optimization end-to-end impact analysis. And what if that environment provided a stakeholder view that includes key co-decision makers in the process, and it could also self-correct and self-learn by recording and analyzing the real-world impact of decisions? This would mean that for common scenarios, recommendations will be more accurate, and in some cases, can be even automated. This is all made possible by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and advanced analytics into a single planning and collaboration ecosystem.

Close coordination of planning and execution is critical, with fully flexible end-to-end visibility for all planners, and symbiotic man-machine interaction. The key ingredients of AI-enabled supply planning are:

  1. A data digital platform: This gives the organization the ability to experiment with innovative processes and new solutions without disrupting their day-to-day operations. It calls for a two-speed IT architecture, 1. Rapid prototyping and iterative development of models with agile methodology and 2. A traditional architecture that focuses on repeatable and reliable service delivery
  2. Real-time adaptive planning: Creating and managing synchronized plans across time horizons, within supply networks, business processes, and organizational ecosystems at the same time
  3. Scenario planning (what-if analysis): Supply planning must become more agile and be able to predict, absorb, and react to changes. Simulate different scenarios and perform sensitivity analysis without changing current plans
  4. Telescopic and integrated planning: Implement a single platform to plan across multiple horizons (LTCP, RCCP, and MPS) with different level of granularity
  5. Advanced inventory analytics: Comprehensive inventory analytics and optimization uses the proven science of multi-echelon inventory optimization (MEIO) to balance cost and service and ensure the right levels of the correct stock, in the right place, at the right time
  6. Cross-functional collaboration: An enterprise-wide collaboration platform to review, correct, approve, and finalize both the short- and long-term supply plan collaboratively. It provides fully- flexible end-to-end visibility for all planners and symbiotic man-machine interactions
  7. Smart self-learning system: Embed continuous learning and automated decision-making with ML, AI, and other advanced analytics to ensure planning is in sync with the physical supply chain. E.g., lead times, production cycle-times, DBNR, set-up times analysis and auto-updates
  8. Proactive master data governance: An accurate master data management system with proactive alerts. ML solutions mimic the rules to check data accuracy and create customized master data health check scorecards and dashboards for planners to make quick decisions
  9. Performance enhancement: Advanced and predictive analytics, ML, AI, and the internet of things combine to perform network-wide root cause analysis to improve supply and generate prescriptive recommendation on future service projections to absorb and react for future inadequacies

The benefits of dynamic supply planning

Companies must devise ways to better access supply chain data through the introduction of technologies that allow data to flow freely through the system. Additionally, technologies such as a supply chain digital twin will allow them to monitor, manage, and observe the impact of decisions.

AI helps businesses analyze demand in real-time so they can update their supply planning parameters dynamically to optimize supply chain flow. With dynamic supply planning, businesses use fewer resources and minimize waste.

These new age planning tools and ML can play an instrumental role in optimizing the complexity of production plans. ML models and techniques can be used to train sophisticated algorithms using existing production data to identify areas of inefficiency and waste.

Finally, ML-enabled supply chains provide the agility to effectively deal with disruptions – keeping customers happy.

Sugantha Rajakumari M, Assistant Vice President, Supply Chain Practice | Planning-as-a-Service, Genpact, holds over 19+ years of experience in extensively working with organizations on end-to-end Plan-to-Deliver process transformation projects. She is currently the Supply Chain Planning SME at Genpact and is instrumental in providing functional & technical subject matter expertise in designing/configuring in-house tools and customizing the market tools for Supply Chain (specifically in demand management and supply planning); managing business processes and delivering impactful metric improvement.

Ayati Devices: Saving lives with Innovation!

The World Health Organization has recognized diabetes as the ninth leading cause of death worldwide, with an estimated one million deaths each year. With every seventh person being diabetic, India ranks as the world’s second-largest country in the global diabetes epidemic.

This chronic health condition gives rise to many fatal diseases that can damage the kidneys, nerves, blood vessels and heart. Many diabetic patients suffer from Peripheral neuropathy- a condition which arises from the damage of nerves in the hands and feet, causing numbness, pain, and loss of sensation.  This condition can turn terminal if not diagnosed and treated on time. If left ignored, poor blood circulation and weak immunity might increase the risk of an ulcer which can also result in amputation. Hence, diabetic patients must get their neuropathy screening, and treatment is done on time.

Founded in 2019, Ayati Devices is diligently bouncing ideas to make the screening of diabetic neuropathic patients effortless, accurate, affordable and accessible. The startup is the brainchild of Nishant Kathpal, who is passionate about learning new technology, and innovation and explores constructive approaches to help solve real-life challenges. With a team of experts from diverse professional backgrounds, he is giving shape to his idea of developing an innovative diabetic foot screener which helps clinicians to save time while maintaining accuracy. This diabetic foot screener is designed to support the patients to monitor the problem which further aids their treatment.

Ayati flagship offerings:

  • VIBRASENSE: A portable point-of-care device to screen and monitor diabetic patients for foot neuropathy at an early stage to prevent foot. The device is useful for OPDs, paying home visits, and screening camps.
  • NEUMU: An automatic device that is capable of doing the comprehensive analysis of the foot including quantification of Pressure, Vibration & Temperature Perception Threshold and accurately diagnosing diabetic patients for peripheral neuropathy.
  • STIMU: This advanced technology is Portable, Automatic and Non-Subjective and has the potential of screening and diagnosing foot ulcer at early stage. It examines the tissues of the patient’s foot sole to only codify them into risk & no-risk zones.

The company is virtually incubated at the Center of Excellence – IoT & AI, Gurugram, which is a Joint initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), Govt. of Haryana, and NASSCOM.

This healthcare startup’s remarkable invention NEUMU takes less than five minutes to diagnose a diabetic patient for neuropathy at an early stage to prevent foot amputations. It quantifies three major parameters. Ayati’s unique solution VIBRASENSE is a battery-powered portable quick screening device that helps in screening and detecting peripheral neuropathy. The algorithm of this technology is designed to analyse patients and classify them into three risk categories that are low, medium and high. The controlled stimulus of this wireless device can be used to find out the loss of sensation on the foot. It can be easily connected with applications for report generation and monitoring purposes. VIBRASENSE has surmounted all scrutinies and has been certified with IEC standards and it stands to be one of the most trusted and preferred Indian CE-marked & CDSCO approved biothesiometer. To date, with the help of this unique solution, Ayati has been able to conduct the screening of more than 100K patients.

Ayati’s brilliant inventiveness had lighted up their way to significant recognition and success. The team was bestowed with opportunities to showcase their innovation on global platforms, including the International Tech Hub by the UK government and the Dubai Expo. They were among the top finalists in the LKYG Business Plan in Singapore and won prestigious titles BIRAC BIG, BIPP, “Best start-up award” in Spain, and the “Best IoT medical device award” at Indian IoT Congress. The team raised a good amount of grants and awards which counts to about 1.5Cr.

To date, Ayati’s devices have been involved in three major screening camps namely the Maharashtra (Shegaon and Chandrapur) Camp, where they have conducted low-cost screening of more than 500 patients, helping them with early diagnosis and timely treatment of any kind of foot malady. The team showed commendable participation in supporting the purpose of the Niramaya Gujarat Program and screened 37 Diabetic patients, out of which 29 tested positive for the diabetic foot.

For the future, Ayati Devices has set their sight on becoming the leading provider of first level of innovation and affordable healthcare monitoring solutions across the globe. Abiding by their motto, the team is working like a Trojan to enable effective screening accessible and affordable for every diabetic patient, especially for those suffering with neuropathy and they plan to do this with the support of VIBRASENSE.  In the time to come, Ayati envisages to grow both nationally and worldwide with targets set to launch itself in the diverse market of Middle East Asia and Africa.

With NASSCOM CoE, Ayati is exploring multiple opportunities with the partners associated with them. These opportunities will help Ayati in scaling up, growth, and attaining much needed momentum,”- Nishant Kathpal, Founder, Ayati Devices.

Employing AI to improve quality and traceability of Mid-Day Meal Scheme in Andhra Pradesh

Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman or PM-POSHAN provides one hot cooked meal in Government and Government-aided schools across India, is the world’s largest Child Nutrition Schemes. This preventive nutrition approach leads to prevention & control of diseases through right nutrition delivery to the future pillars of India.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on 21 January 2020 expanded the scheme to AP Jagananna Gorumudda Scheme 2021, where additionally students get 5 Eggs and 3 Chikkis (peanut-jaggery sweet) per week along with the Mid Day Meals. This scheme will ensure that all the students get proper nutrition during their school hours.

UdyogYantra, a Tech Startup based out of Delhi & part of NASSCOM CoE for IoT & AI, founded by Ankur Jain, a Delhi University-IIT Bombay Alumni, has developed a patented IoT – AI Platform ( nutreGRO ) to track the Food Quality &  Nutrition being given to children under the PM POSHAN scheme and it’s impact on Child Growth.

nutreGRO is a MADE in India IoT Device where AI  identifies the food contents, its nutritional value, AI facial recognition identifies the child and Captures Child Weight, Height & BMI, all in Real Time.

Already deployed in Andhra Pradesh, UdyogYantra nutreGRO device enables delivery of right nutrition to the right recipient child & correlating its impact on child health to screen for health problems like obesity, or growth retardation in children due to lack of nutrition. This enables predicting the nutritional and health trends across the country to detect whether a state or district is moving towards a health / mal-nutrition state and empowers the government to create a targeted health intervention plan.

Current deployed at Jagananna Gorumudda Scheme in Zila Parishad High Schools in Vijayawada, Krishna District , Andhra Pradesh for last 2 months, UdyogYantra nutreGRO IoT Device and nutreGRO AI Child Nutrition & Health Dashboard is acting like a catalyst in achieving the goals of Department of School Education in Mid-Day Meals Scheme, Government of Andhra Pradesh.

Supply chain analytics: Network optimization

As COVID-19 continues to impact business dynamics, supply chains are still facing disruption. Organizations using old legacy systems and processes are finding it hard to adapt to the new realities. And longer-term supply chain strategies, such as network optimization, need to be reassessed to increase agility.

Although supply chain network optimization covers the end-to-end function, I’m going to focus on the logistics network as a starter as it’s one of the critical streams of SC optimization and brings in clear use cases to optimize costs.

Supply chain network optimization is typically carried out only occasionally and usually as a precursor to a major change of network entities e.g. bringing in a new supplier base, changing manufacturing locations, or changing the distribution footprint. Often, these changes are led by an outside consultant, and strategy recommendations are left to the organization to implement.

Transportation network optimization is either outsourced to a third-party or done as part of a transport management system (TMS) set-up configuration as a one-off activity.

Carrier analytics, another major pillar in framework optimization, is a core activity and is carried out in most organizations, evaluating historical performance using key parameters to guide future strategy. However, this is still a manual exercise in MS Excel for most the firms.

You’ll also find business impact and visualization for activities spread across multiple reports with backward-looking descriptive analytics; making it difficult to take proactive actions.

I believe, given the global nature of supply chains, closed-loop supply chain network planning enabled by advanced analytics and digital technologies can be a differentiator. If this is coupled with market need and upstream planning, it also can be leveraged as a growth driver for serving new customers and markets.

We recommend our clients undertake supply chain network optimization as a periodical exercise. This not only helps refine overall strategy, but also brings agility to operational decisions and drives continuous improvement. Completing a periodic gap analysis with optimal network performance helps identify shifting patterns, challenges, and ways to address them in an agile way.  Seamless integration with systems of record for running models and report-out status as a simple exercise is another area that brings in greater flexibility for optimization routines.

Apart from supply chain network planning, some of the other areas worth focusing on are highlighted below.

  • Transportation network optimization can increase consolidation potential and enable better use of transportation modes. A process to compare historical shipments to optimal shipment plans helps identify a lost opportunity. At the same time, projected capacity requirement helps in accurately sourcing cheaper modes of transportation

With cloud-based TMS reducing the system cost, automation of freight audits, computation of expedites, and auctions in an automated way is changing the ways to control costs. Rather than doing sample analysis due to lack of time, automation is enabling 100% detection and saving dollars.

A good supply chain optimization framework should always be supported by a control tower to proactively prevent exceptions that lead to loss of service or high costs. Similarly, an SC data lake combining internal data with carrier or 3rd party data helps provide real-time visibility. Advanced analytics proactively identifies delays and dynamic rerouting minimizes the chances of incurring delay penalties.

For supply chain functions, balancing costs and service has been a perpetual challenge. Organizations that treat this as an opportunity are increasingly capturing market share as well as save costs. Analytics-led, holistic supply chain optimization is unlocking new opportunities, which apart from better metric performance, also builds supply chain resilience.

Sugantha Rajakumari M, Assistant Vice President, Supply Chain Practice | Planning-as-a-Service, Genpact, holds over 19+ years of experience in extensively working with organizations on end-to-end Plan-to-Deliver process transformation projects. She is currently the Supply Chain Planning SME at Genpact and is instrumental in providing functional & technical subject matter expertise in designing/configuring in-house tools and customizing the market tools for Supply Chain (specifically in demand management and supply planning); managing business processes and delivering impactful metric improvement.

BRIOTA Technologies: Innovation enhancing lung health!!

Timely diagnosis and treatment of respiratory diseases remain to be a major concern for the healthcare sector. For decades, lung diseases like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) have been one of the most common causes of death in the world. The healthcare system is continuously embracing contemporary measures and innovations to prevent, control and manage both infectious and non-communicable lung diseases. New-fangled digital technologies have transformed the healthcare system and empowered physicians to hit on innovative methods to enhance patient outcomes and deliver quality care to patients.

A Pune-based startup, Briota Technologies, has come forward to unleash potential technologies to develop effective solutions and bridge the gaps in healthcare services, giving prominence to enhancing the screening, diagnostic, care, and management of chronic respiratory conditions.

Briota was set up by Gajanan Sakhare and Shardul Joshi, both of whom were passionate about using AI to help improve Health Equity. The startup is focused on devising AI-first technology solutions in an affordable and accessible manner. The team of Briota Technologies has developed cost-effective innovative products and services to simplify the screening, diagnosis, and treatment process for Asthma, COPD, Long Covid, and Post TB Lung complications. They aim to make quality care affordable and accessible for all through their flagship offering SAVE (Screening, diagnosis, management Assisted Virtually and Early). SAVE project has helped more than 40 thousand patients manage their lung health during the pandemic.

Briota Technologies is among the 12 startups that were part of the sixth edition of Qualcomm Design in India Challenge (QDIC) – an initiative to encourage design houses and product companies to invent useful and innovative hardware product designs incorporating Qualcomm SoC platforms and technologies. Through QDIC, Briota had the opportunity to convert its design submissions into workable prototypes under the mentorship of industry experts, utilizing the Qualcomm® Innovation Lab infrastructure.

“Qualcomm cohort was like a fast track MIT course in hardware design thinking for us!! We are glad that we could be part of such cohort covering practical issues and challenges for a hardware startup. We got lot of insights from Qualcomm team and also got lot of shared learning from other participants. We could get access to the right people and right resources in one place. Specifically, I would like to highlight Qualcomm team’s support around patent filing process,” says, Gajanan Sakhare, Founder, Briota Technologies.

This MedTech firm has crafted solutions like:

  • SiA™ (Systematic Intervention Agent): AI First platform which is fully implemented for Asthma, COPD and Long Covid and can be extended to any other chronic condition to be managed at home. This platform is available in SaaS (Software As A Solution) and Custom Development model for other startups and established companies.
  • SpiroPRO™: The ease-to-use device is designed to streamline screening, diagnosis, monitor treatment, enable real-time data of the lung health and in a few seconds connect and share reports with the physicians. These tests are CDSCO approved and are accurate to laboratory standards. It has helped doctors take better medical decisions and expedite medication.
  • NEHA™: This light and handy smart app supports patients, doctors and caregivers at every step. Its works as an all-inclusive store that allows the user to book an appointment to consult a physician, maintain the medicine time-table and keep a tab on the lung health.
  • Inhaler PROTM : A one-off smart inhaler, Inhaler ProTM works in sync with app NEHA to document the health statistics, frequency, and medication guideline of the patient. These particulars help in monitoring Asthma patients, and help make smart choices about the medicines that promotes health. It detects temperature, puff counts and SpO2.
  • BreathPROTM: This mechanical exerciser is a unique innovation that helps enhance lung capacity by reducing mucous in airway. It helps in improving respiratory ailments such as Asthma, COPD and others.

These technology solutions have played a notable role in addressing the unmet challenges in this pandemic time, focussing on the early detection of asthma and COPD in children and elderly patients. The products are ISO 9001:2015 & ISO 13485:2016 certified and are approved by Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).

One of its top-notch initiatives powered by their AI-powered Platform SiA™ is a 12 months customized lung care program which takes a holistic approach of managing lung health at home. It includes simple mobile application for improving adherence and support from coaches and medical staff through remote video calls.

Figure 1 SiA™ Platform

“Besides innovating devices that help reduce the burden of chronic respiratory diseases, we wanted to build a platform that will proffer patients personalized programs to Asthma and Covid19 patients. We have got the best-in-class coaches who are qualified Respiratory Therapists, Yoga Experts, Emotional Wellness Experts, Physiotherapists, and Nutritionists. They closely work with the patient to understand their requirement and curate the suitable lung program for them,” commented Shardul Joshi, Co-Founder, Founder of Briota Technologies.

Briota Technologies added many feathers to its cap! Excellence in Innovation Healthcare Start-up of the Year 2021 Award was conferred to the startup by the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI). They won this award for improving health equity through their affordable SpiroPRO™ device and SAVE programs. The start-up received a year-long mentorship from Bayer Pharmaceuticals. It has also bagged “SKOCH Order of Merit Semi-Finals Award 2020” for Project SAVE at the 67th SKOCH Summit on the state of governance. Briota and it’s founder Gajanan is now invited Denmark Government under their Startup promotion program to setup Briota operations in Denmark.  Now Briota is working from both locations – Pune, India and Copenhagen, Denmark.

A bootstrapped firm, Briota has raised initial research capital through soft money and is now initiated fundraising activities. The team plans to go for MedTech focused IPO in Denmark in next two years. The company has signed up collaboration agreements with two leading pharmaceutical companies and is working closely with multiple hospitals in India and Europe. Apart from their proprietary hardware system, they are also partnering with various other hardware providers to expand coverage of our SaaS platform. With the clinical validation in Denmark and CE marking to be completed by December 2023, Briota is working on a plan to expand in Europe, Japan and the USA.

To date, the startup has crowned other significant projects such as the “VIEW “Pilot Study on COVID Diagnosed Mild & Asymptomatic Patients in Dec 2020, which was done in collaboration with Symbiosis Center of Health Care has completed  In 2020, Briota technologies completed another important project called “SURAKSHA 2020” in partnership with Xynteo New Growth Lab Foundation for Corporates.

For any further information\query you can write to us at Co-innovate@nasscom.in.

HELYXON: An all-inclusive store providing innovative technology in Healthcare!

The prime concern of every healthcare provider is to deliver optimal patient care. Howbeit, this ultimate goal is disrupted by the complexities in the health system and the gaps in primary care coordination.

Very often we get to see that the treatment recommended for curing a disease fails due to the non-compliant behavior of the patients. This happens when the patients do not complete their screening and diagnostic processes or take drugs to treat an illness without consulting the doctor. These care gaps are the core reasons that lead to poor patient outcomes, delayed as well as expensive diagnoses & prolonged medications, and medical errors. On the other hand, the quandary over deciphering issues and taking measures to meet patient-specific needs continues to widen the gap.

How do we close the gaps to enhance care coordination and deliver effective care to patients? The first and foremost solution is to implement independent practices. Establishing a robust and long-term patient-physician relationship is essential for quality primary care. Maintaining a log-book with patients to track their medical records of patients enables clinicians to extend better treatment by giving a glance at their medical history.

To help physicians further bridge this gap and streamline patient care, HELYXON is availing cutting-edge technologies to help physicians rationalize their healthcare management strategies and enable quality health affordable, accessible and reliable. This Med Tech startup is founded by technophile Vijai Shankar Raja, who holds an extensive experience of over 30 years in the healthcare industry. He has been venturing into the medical domain as the prime mover of a medical equipment company, CURA Healthcare. His pronounced cognizance of the challenges, opportunities, and needs of the ecosystem helped him to prepare the way for an establishment that solves some of the major issues faced by the health system.

The company is virtually incubated at the Center of Excellence – IoT & AI, Gurugram, which is a Joint initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), Govt. of Haryana, and NASSCOM.

With a robust and innovative team, HELYXON has crafted a futuristic platform that supports hospitals to augment their brand value and enrich their custom-tailored solutions to enable the physicians maintain a head-on dialogue with the patients. This has effectively worked on enhancing doctor-patient relationship. Their far-reaching products and solutions empower Virtual Hospitals, Smart Clinics, Community Health, Tele-Consultation, Remote Monitoring and Disruptive OPD.

This PhyGital system extends assistance to specialists like Paediatricians, Neonatologist, Gynaecologist, Surgeons, Physiotherapists and others.

HELYXON has paid deliberate attention to enhance patient care through its one-of-a-kind platform, EPICare. It is an exclusive system that supports Patient Engagement, Personal Health Record on patient mobile, enables Internet of Things based remote monitoring medical grade devices, and assists with Commerce & Communication capabilities. The solution is devised with the objective of addressing the patient management using technology only. Using these tech-enabled tools and complying with the proprieties, mild and moderately ill patients at the community can keep a tab on the health parameters and keeping constant touch with the doctors which ultimately leads to better patient outcome.  There are more than 35 apps & interfaces and 100+ functionalities that is facilitating doctors and patients be in sync and bring about effective care.

Figure 1: Remote vitals monitoring solution at hospital for step-down ICU and for the rural settings.

“The motive behind developing the EPICare platform is to simplify doctor-patient interaction and bridge the gaps between them. This digital system is helping patients get immediate medical counseling from their doctors at home. It also enables the doctors to constantly monitor their patients’ health which helps them to provide prompt medication and focus on crucial things. We are creating a new digital health economy and an ecosystem to help all the stakeholders of the care continuum.” says Vijai Shankar Raja, founder of HELYXON.

HELYXON’s role in addressing the gaps in patient care by enabling downright remote monitoring is lauded by giants across healthcare ecosystem. In a one-off collaboration, the startup along with IIT Madras’ Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre invented and deployed remote patient monitoring solutions for COVID 19. This ground-breaking invention is developed by integrating Tele engagement platform (EPICare) and Remote Monitoring Vitals Solution and named OXY-2. It is methodized to monitor medical parameters such as SpO2, Heart Rate, Respiration Rate and Temperature through a Bluetooth and this data is then transferred to a mobile APP (iVITAL+). Equipped with iVITAL+ & mobile App, this wireless patient monitoring device play a crucial role in aiding clinicians with accurate and complete data and assist them to connect with the patients and remotely deliver treatment.

Figure 2: Smart Anthropometry measurement at clinic and at community level helps making better decisions and to get to know the holistic view of what is happening at the grass root level.

To date, HELYXON has served around 100+ doctors, above 2 Lakhs patients, and sold more than 10,000 devices. The startup owns a good business partnership with leading brands like Apollo Hospitals, SIMS Hospital Chennai, JIPMER Pondicherry, MGM Hospital Chennai and many others.

HELYXON’s nonpareil invention was acknowledged by the CII Tamil Nadu chapter. The honorable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu awarded them with the COVID Champion award which is a part of the flagship IT conference-CII Connect 2020. They are the winners of many acclaimed awards including the NASSCOM Healthcare Innovation Challenge 2, JanCARE Awards for IMR & MMR Management Solutions, Frost & Sullivan Awards, and many more.

HELYXON strongly believes that it is not just the technology that determines the success of these solutions but a strong understanding of the healthcare, its challenges, gaps and inadequacies that determines the success. All solutions and devices from HELYXON are appreciated by the users for its versatility and adaptability to healthcare. In the acronym of ART (Affordability, Reach and Trust) the T becomes the most important aspect. With TRUST, any treatment becomes more impactful. HELYXON brings in the factors of affordability and reach with its devices and solutions to augment the engagement between doctors and their patients for better outcomes.

HELYXON is now stepping into its acceleration phase with expansion of geographical reach all across the country. It is already establishing partners, dealers and associates to take this solution to the nook and corner of the country.

“Being part of NASSCOM CoE is a shot in the arm for HELYXON. It is a bridge between us and the outside world which has real-world challenges. It has helped us connect with many stakeholders in order to solve those challenges together. It is an objective way of making our path breaking technology reach where it really deserves to reach thereby bringing in the right impact,” Vijai Shankar Raja, founder of HELYXON.   

The promise of the digital factory

Smart manufacturing is shaping the future. Catch the wave now

You may have heard people refer to the digital factory or the brilliant factory. Some just call it smart manufacturing. Whatever its name, however, the term describes an evolving era in which manufacturing processes and operations are as much digital as they are physical. New technological advancements – all part of an ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) – have raised our awareness of this trend.

Figure 1Ganeshmurthy Bhat, Global Lead - Augmented Intelligence - IoT/Aftermarket Services & Solutions at Genpact.

Challenges facing Smart Manufacturing

Yet converting from customary manufacturing to smart manufacturing takes a lot more work than typical IT transformation projects do. The reason: Deploying the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) in a factory is much more complex. Smart manufacturing solutions generally must pervade both operating technology (OT) and information technology (IT) – traditionally siloed domains.

What’s more, making the shift calls for a strong governance model! The IIoT brings with it a number of process and operational changes that dig deep into human functions, and the ripple effect can impact the whole organization.

Finally, the switchover creates the need for major physical changes – retrofitting sensors, installing data acquisition modules, and creating infrastructure to stream data, to name some.

What does Smart Manufacturing offer!

Given these challenges, you might wonder why companies bother with IIoT-enabled smart manufacturing in the first place. Isn’t the status quo good enough? Not really, because smart manufacturing promises many benefits. These include:

  • More visibility into KPIsto improve and measure performance, to speed up decision-making and to introduce new products for manufacture faster.
  • Improved overall equipment efficiencyfor better machine use and higher outputs.
  • Consistent output and improved on-time delivery.
  • Improved quality, reduced waste, and less corrective work.
  • More efficient use of labor, utilities, raw materials, and capacity.
  • Reduced unplanned downtimeby ensuring machines are safe and in good condition so planned disruptions are as short as possible.
  • Improved health and safety conditions.
  • Improved supply chain integration.
  • Improved after-market services.

Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive. As well, outcomes vary depending on the industry, the domain, the maturity level, geography, and other conditions.

Where to start?

As the first step along the journey to converting your manufacturing facility into a digital one, you’ll need a holistic view of the factory floor. That includes taking a look at key KPIs as they relate to both connected and non-connected devices.

Smart manufacturing offers so many possibilities – condition-based monitoring, predictive maintenance, spare part optimization, track-and-trace visibility, and so on – that deciding where to start can be daunting. That’s especially so because there are unique advantages to each solution. But with a full picture of operations, you can narrow your focus and prioritize the operations and phases that will deliver the quickest benefits.

Once you’ve determined what comes first, the next step should involve establishing strong links between your operational technology and your information technology. Doing so will give you the data you need for advanced analytics.

Then, with clear priorities and the valuable insights you derive from analytics, you can take the final step – setting up best-in-class benchmarks.

The brilliant factory – the future of manufacturing – is already changing the competitive landscape. If you want to keep your edge, the status quo won’t do. Now is the time to get going.

About the Author:

Ganeshmurthy Bhat is Global Lead – Augmented Intelligence – IoT/Aftermarket Services & Solutions at Genpact, Ex-Supply Chain leader at GE, Ex-Design & Development at DRDO, Molex. With over 18+ years of experience in diverse domain areas such as IOT/IIOT, Industry 4.0, Supply chain aftermarket Service Transformation, he is a trusted analytics advisor for consulting, solution implementation & managed services. He’s a part of NASSCOM FutureSkills initiative to establish IoT Qualification Packs and National Occupational Standards as approved by National Skills Development Authority & Secretary and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MoSDE) for IoT.

CynLr: Making Manufacturing Simple with Visual Robots!

Figure 1 Nikhil Ramaswamy and Gokul NA, CynLr

The fusion of science, technology, and engineering paved the way for a massive explosion of innovation. The continuous game-changing advances and discoveries taking shape in the Deep tech sector have brought about dramatic disruption in the way industries function. Robotics is one of those technological breakthroughs that has positively revolutionized our lives.

The advancements in robotics have created a positive impact across domains, mainly the manufacturing industry. For years, industrial robots have been playing a significant role in helping manufacturing companies streamline their workflow, close the skill gaps and labour crisis, boost productivity and maintain precision & consistency.

Deep tech startup CynLr’s ground-breaking Visual Robot platform helps “simplify” manufacturing that is trapped in the quick-sand of never-ending custom engineering cycles to automate, that currently takes years to complete if at all the automation is feasible. This customization today is largely due to the inability of the Robots to see. While on the other hand today’s best Vision & AI/ML, which entirely is focused on just colour & depth of an object, is incapable of assisting Object Manipulation. The startup is a brainchild of two deep tech enthusiasts, Nikhil Ramaswamy and Gokul NA, who envisaged setting up a visual object intelligence platform that enables industrial robotic arms to see, understand and manipulate any object in random unstructured environments, making them a one-stop solution – a LEGO block for all automation/object handling.

“Imagine a computer that processes objects instead of data. And that doesn’t look like the Laptop that you have but looks like this – the Visual Robot,” said Nikhil Ramaswamy, Co-Founder, CynLr.

The central thought was to develop a vision-guided robotics platform powered by trending technologies to help perceive and create prolific visuals to manipulate and handle the objects. The prime movers have worked their fingers to the bone to develop a technology that differentiates Sight from Vision and begins its algorithms from its HW using Auto-Focus Liquid Lens Optics, Optical Convergence, Temporal Imaging, Hierarchical Depth Mapping, and Force-Correlated Visual Mapping. It enables the robots with human-like vision and versatility to grasp even Mirror-Finished objects without any pre-training (a feat that that current ML systems can’t achieve). CynLr’s visual robots can comprehend the features of an object and re-orient them based on the requirements. The AI & Machine Learning algorithms help robotic arms process the task even in an amorphous setting and align them in the best way possible.

The idiosyncrasies of these cost-effective and resilient visual robots make them the most reliable and preferred visual robotic platform. Apart from the manufacturing companies, this technology can help simplify tasks for warehousing enterprises, logistics, and industrial kitchen.

This year has been favourable for CynLr as it has been successful in notching up a record fund of $4.5 million in pre-Series A funding led by Speciale Invest and growX Ventures. The other institutional investors that participated in the round include Anicut Capital, Infoedge, Java Capital, Venture Catalysts, and Arali Ventures. CynLr has already set a concrete objective of effectively using this fund to establish its presence in the US, scale its team to over 50 members and build capacity to address the customers, and deliver 100 Robots annually.

Before this funding, the Bengaluru-based start-up has secured INR 5.5 Cr in a seed funding round in the year 2019 which was also led by Speciale Invest, Arali Ventures, growX ventures, CIIE Initiatives, and Dr. Vijay Kedia.

“Currently a pre-revenue company and have raised funds to deliver to our current pipeline of customers. In the coming quarter, we will expand our presence to US,” he added.

The Path Ahead!

The team of CynLr has embarked on the mission of revolutionizing the manufacturing industry by bringing in smart manufacturing. Founded in 2019, the start-up plans to completely automate industrial robots by amplifying the computing system with the help of object intelligence. They intend to unleash the power of technology and innovation to develop a neural model of objects and lead advancement across industries.

“NASSCOM (CoE IoT & AI) is the first support that we got from outside and incubated us out of their facility. It got us through one of the toughest time – COVID 19 and they never backed down on us,”- Gokul NA, Co-founder, CynLr.

For any further information\query you can write to us at Co-innovate@nasscom.in

Robo Bionics: Improving Human Lives with Technology!

Theoretical physicist and Cosmologist Stephen Hawking is the biggest inspiration for people living with disabilities. Despite being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in his early twenties, Stephen did not allow his disablement to stop him from achieving his dream. He turned to technology to countervail his speech and mobility difficulties. He had changed our perspective on disability and encouraged the community to leverage technology to raise the living standard of billions who live with a disability.

Advances in technology are extensively enhancing the prototyping of prosthetics. Many pioneers have ventured into this space and are designing efficient and comfortable artificial limbs.

Inspired by a real-life encounter, an IIT alumni Llewellyn Dsa decided to weigh up cutting-edge technologies and leverage them to help the disabled change the way they lived. The light bulb moment on his entrepreneurial journey happened when he came across a physically challenged batch mate who was struggling to get the right prosthetic limb that fitted him well and brought him the ease and support he needed to carry out his daily chores. Llewellyn’s avidity incited him to take a deeper look into the gaps that existed in the technologies, functionality, and affordability of these artificial arms. The aspiration of bridging these gaps and enabling people with physical disabilities lead a life that is self-standing, Medtech enthusiasts Llewellyn along with Anil Nair, and Priyanka Dsa laid the cornerstone of Robo Bionics.

Robo Bionics launched an artificial robotic hand called Grippy- a NABL Lab Safety Tested and Certified, 3D printed Prosthetic hand with a sense of touch and multi-grip control. The altruistic innovation of this Mumbai-based startup has gained paramount recognition across the domain. Their invention is acknowledged by the Startup India Initiative by the DPIIT, Government of India, and bagged them the National Startup Award 2021 in Medical Devices on the eve of National Startup Day!

The company is virtually incubated at the Center of Excellence – IoT & AI, Gurugram, which is a Joint initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), Govt. of Haryana, and NASSCOM. They are TechWizards Affiliated.

Llewellyn D’sa Co-Founder of Robo Bionics said, “We have developed our sensors named MMG sensors that work on the pressure displacement rather than nerve activity because of which the product learning time by the user gets reduced to half as it’s as easy as operating a doorbell and it doesn’t depend on conditions like sweat, humidity, and fatigue like traditional EMG sensors. We have also added a feedback loop like our proprietary sense of touch technology that enables us to reduce the learning time and incorporate a Bio-Feedback onto the product.”

How does Grippy assist amputees?

This user-friendly prosthetic hand empowers amputees to perform physical chores like opening or closing a bottle cap, eating, dressing, driving a car, holding a newspaper, holding a handle, and so forth, without difficulty or dependency. The electronic sensors in the devices mimic the sense of touch that makes the user feel secure and comfortable. The fact that Grippy is non-invasive and weighs between  500 to 700 grams which are way lesser than a traditional prosthesis, it is comprehensible and ensures easy interfacing without counting much on one’s vision or intuition makes it one of the most suitable and desirable prosthetic hands.

Robo Bionics started its journey in 2016, and in four years the company has successfully built, tested, and fitted prosthetic hands for people with congenital hand deformities (deformations by birth). The battery-powered prosthesis is designed for people above the age of 15 years and with below elbow amputation. One can use this tech-enabled wearable device without any implantation, or surgery and with minimal training. Other than these, this innovative panacea has also offered a helping hand to about 25 traumatic amputees to lead an active life.

Figure 1Mr Russel using Grippy- The prosthetic hand to open and pour water from a bottle

“We have done a lot of brainstorming while designing Grippy. To help users set their hands on its functioning in just 15 to 20 minutes, our team has worked diligently on making the wearable self-reliant, lightweight, and most importantly reduce the learning curve with improved ergonomics. We have used silicon fingertips cotton gloves that are removable and washable. We have priced our products giving thought to making them affordable and accessible by all. It costs Rs.1.5 to Rs.2 Lakhs and it’s comparatively lesser than the other prosthetic hands available in the market,” he adds.

Robo Bionics has been working and providing service to the Armed Forces Medical College, hospitals, and NGOs across the nation. They are in partnership with eCommerce platforms like Medikabazaar which are assisting them in the online distribution of the products.

The objective of this high-tech prosthetic arm development company is encouraged and supported by industry leaders like Startup India, BIRAC, SINE, The GAIN, IC IIT Patna, StartupXseed, IIM Calcutta, and many others. The company has raised a good amount of funding up to 1.2 crores from influential organizations like SINE, BIRAC, IC IITP, and others. Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) has extended great support to the company through the IIPME grant and the many workshops organized by them. It has helped the startup structure its growth and development goals, setting the road to success.

Robo Bionics has recently been felicitated as the Top 5 Social Impact Start-ups by the Adani Group GreenTalks 2021 and is awarded as the Emerging Social Enterprise 2021 at TiE Sustainability Summit 2021.

After years of diligent research and brainstorming, Robo Bionics released about 50 units of its product in February 2021. With the grail to extend a helping hand to build human spirit and self-confidence, the startup resolves to continue devising robotics and bionics solutions. In the days to come, it plans to manufacture up to 150 to 200 units and navigate into the international market.

“NASSCOM CoE is our key partner for spreading awareness to scaling our business in India. The team is very helpful and open to new ideas. While the team is helping us develop the market and different channels, we believe their corporate connections could also help in creating a unique channel using CSR” Llewellyn Dsa, Founder & CEO, Robo Bionics.

For any further information\query you can write to us at Co-innovate@nasscom.in

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