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CoE IoT Official Blog
Qritive: Leveraging AI to enhance histopathology diagnosis of cancer & the quality of patient care!
The past decade has seen a massive technology explosion in medical sciences which has made patient care simpler and efficient. Healthcare innovators are playing a crucial role in driving innovation in the healthcare industry that has stimulated new opportunities, boosted proficiency, and helped the sector address the challenges.
Tech-enthusiasts Dr. Aneesh Sathe, Dr. Kaveh Taghipour, and Dr. Rajasa Jialdasani jumped in the sublime bandwagon of leveraging the state-of-art-technologies to revamp the methods observed for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. They ventured into the domain with the end in view to discover the innovative technological leeway and approaches to enhance histopathology diagnosis of cancer, making it faster, accurate and affordable. Qritive is helping patients and doctors breathe a sigh of relief by developing clinical-grade decision support systems that assist the delivery of insightful, meticulous and personalized care.
Qritive’s concept of unleashing the power of Artificial Intelligence and image analytics to further the digital pathology and the research associated with it has precipitated innovative approaches to curate AI-powered solutions for the pathology labs and get regulatory approvals for them. Furthermore, Qritive also excels in building customized applications that empower pathologists to straightaway share data on the cloud including images captured by phone, camera-mounted microscopes, or whole-slide scanners.
Qritive created a unique CE-IVD marked vendor-agnostic digital pathology platform intending to dynamize the digitization and remodel the pathology lab workflow, enhance telepathology and support remote diagnosis. Through PantheonTM the company aims to enable AI analysis of whole-slide imaging in pathology and encourage the development of reports that are verifiable and well-grounded. The platform’s AI modules assist pathologists to study a range of diseases by helping to detect and grade cancers. Qritive is working with research institutions on R&D projects for building predictive digital biomarkers.
Qritive is one of the six startups selected by GE Healthcare under its India Edison Accelerator Programme-a first-of-its-kind initiative that aims to co-create technology solutions that will enable healthcare providers to deliver precision health, aiming to accelerate the transformation of the healthcare industry. The startup is enabled to work with healthcare industry experts from within and outside GE on their product development for six months.
Established in 2017, Qritive has come a long way! The startup has created a niche in the healthcare ecosystem and has successfully positioned itself as a ground breaking health tech startup in the international market. It has established partnership with major hospitals and senior pathologists in Singapore and South East Asia, and leading companies such as DELL, Philips, AWS, Google Cloud, Singapore General Hospital, and many more.
Its out-of-the-box initiatives have won many titles and awards. From making to the list of Top 10 companies MedTech Innovator Asia Pacific 2020 to getting featured by National Research Foundation Singapore, selected by Elevator (NRF) 2017, receiving Class A Medical Device registration from Health Sciences Authority Singapore (HSA) to obtaining CE Mark for Digital Pathology and getting certified as ISO 13485 international standard for design, development, manufacture, distribution, and installation of software medical devices across the globe, Qritive has earned it all! The company is backed by Singapore and US VC funds and the largest hospitals in the region.
Over and above these, the company has emerged as one of the winners of the second edition of NASSCOM CoE’s Healthcare Innovation Challenge (HIC 2.0).
For the time to come, Qritive anticipates to further explore technology to make cancer diagnostic more advanced and accessible. It aims to see itself as the leader in the realm of cancer diagnostics.
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Embedsense Solutions: Developing IoT based solutions to transform the manufacturing and transportation landscape!
Embedsense Solutions: Developing IoT based solutions to transform the manufacturing and transportation landscape!
Innovation has played an instrumental role in unlocking new possibilities and reshaping the manufacturing landscape. Industry 4.0 and its implementation have extensively assisted manufacturers to restyle their manufacturing operations and enhance the decision-making process to fundamentally boost efficiency, productivity, address complexities and deliver high-quality services and products.
The aspiration to stimulate and expand the digital transformation culture in the manufacturing ecosystem incited S. Venkatesh Prasanna and Shubha Prasanna to bring into being Embedsense Solutions- a tech startup that employs contemporary technologies such as AI & ML to design products and solutions to cater to the needs, optimize, supervise and control industrial processes. The startups’ forte lies in devising smart sensor solutions that best suit the criteria of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). With the expertise built in the industrial space, the company extended its technology applicability to transportation infrastructure as well with its IoT-based Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) solutions.
Embedsense Solutions is among the 12 finalists selected for the fifth 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.
Backed by a team of technocrats who have a stronghold on manufacturing, hardware, and software development, Embedsense Solutions has devised a horde of solutions keeping in mind the different requirements of the manufacturing industries and cities of tomorrow. Embedsense has developed niche solutions for the Injection Moulding, Die Casting, Stamping, and Process-oriented industries. Their flagship health monitoring solution covers various types of assets – be it rotary machines, machines with complex subsystems on the shop floor, or concrete structures that make up the transport infrastructure that spans our sprawling cities. These solutions can transform any legacy asset irrespective of its type, make, model or capacity into a smart asset and bring it onto the digital highway. Deliberate engineering and intimate knowledge of manufacturing processes have resulted in solutions that are pioneering in nature and serve as strong differentiators in the manufacturing space. Making manufacturing units more profitable by giving them tools that improve quality, reduce defects, improve productivity & safety while lowering their energy consumption costs is a common denominator in all their solutions. Tangible value realization happens in a short span of 6-9 months of deployment. Embedsense product offerings include monitoring/recording and alerting on the presence of contaminants in clean rooms and other critical care facilities ensuring a safe environment for occupants and sensitive products that demand pristine settings for their well-being and quality.
The company has seen steady growth in its client base and has created strategic partnerships with Industrial product suppliers. The company is slated to deliver products to material handling system OEMs and Stamping machine OEMs as well. Building partnerships and strategic alliances to take their offerings to overseas markets as well as in the works.
The company continues to innovate and develop products that are geared towards helping manufacturing units improve their bottom lines and remain competitive in the global marketplace.
Established in 2015, Embedsense Solutions is trusted by big names such as Bosch, Britannia, the Indian Institute of Science, AEL, and others. It has received investment from Shell India Markets Private Limited and other agencies. The company is looking forward to connecting with investors and raising funding to innovate on their business model as well and achieve scale with their end-to-end offerings of sensor hardware, systems, and turn-key solutions.
It has been amongst the nation’s top 40 startups in the PAN IIT showcase and has won the title of Top 10 Startup in India-Amrita TBI Pitchfest. They have received three grants from the MSME COE under the auspices of IISc Bangalore and are slated to receive funding from MEITY as well. The startup has also won the Elevate 2019 (Govt. of Karnataka) award for being the top ESDM startup and the Special Mention Startup: Emerging Tech- IOT Next 2019 Award from IoT Forum for India.
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TekUncorked LVIoT: A platform that aims to Light up Lives!!
In a world where all our activities are dependent on electricity, can you give a thought to surviving without a power supply!!!! It will be hard to renounce this necessity and live off the grid. In a society where the urban areas are blessed with the opportunity to leverage the power of energy to light up lives, the rural group remains devoid of electricity. This disparity caught the attention of a visionary leader who dreams of creating a future where the machine does the talking.
A corporate employee turned entrepreneur, Meenakshi Vashist envisions an environment where humans and intelligent machines can bond together to make smart decisions and make the world a better place to live. Her end in view was to leverage the power of technology solutions to cut down on the electricity wasted for a sustainable world. The aspiration to solve the challenges in making electricity available to all at affordable cost, Meenakshi together with two pathfinders Ram Sethi and Rohit Monga instituted TekUncorked- a tech-driven startup that uses IoT and Artificial Intelligence to reduce grid losses in electricity distribution through digitization, predictive maintenance and fault mitigation and focusing all efforts on reliable rural electrification.
The Indian government has taken many initiatives to spur the advancement of the power sector and there is no doubt it has to achieve milestones in this space. However, this industry is harrowed by complex challenges such as insufficient power generation, meeting the growing demand of power, and its distribution. In such a scenario intelligent solutions like TekUncorked LVIoT help the Utilities combat some of these challenges.
The company is physically incubated at Center of Excellence – IoT & AI, Gurugram, which is a Joint initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), Govt. of Haryana, and NASSCOM.
“TekUncorked LVIoT is the outcome of my passion towards enabling reliable, outage-free electricity for all. We have a small yet powerful team that strives to accomplish the beautiful dream of lighting up lives” says Meenakshi Vashist, CEO & Founder, TekUncorked.
The passionate team of TekUncorked LVIoT builds, deploys, and maintains the enterprise-ready LVIoT platform, making the Electricity Distribution Grid Smart by checking the health of grid infrastructure in real-time 24×7. Any conditions on or around the grid which can pose a risk or threat to electricity distribution intended consumers are detected, alerted upon, and mitigated. MV: Electricity Distribution Utilities are primary customers for TekUncorked LVIoT. It is also engaged in pilots and commercial deployments with over 4 Utilities in India.
The platform comprises LVIOT Grid Controllers – a range of smart, connected IoT Edge devices designed to add intelligence in Distribution Grid Assets like ACBs, Distribution Transformers, and Feeder Pillars. Made by the perfect amalgamation of composite edge & connectivity hardware, cloud services, powerful AI engine, remote dashboard, and API connectivity, the LVIoT platform helps in curtailing the waste in the electricity distribution via fault forecasting and detection of electricity thefts. It sends alerts, notifications on LV breakdowns forecasts failures, and localizes faults.
“We did our first pilot deployments in 2019 in North India with the Tata Power. We utilized the COVID times to mature the LVIoT product stack so that it could deliver the right value for the customer and could sustain harsh outdoors for 7-10 years. This was followed by early commercial orders and our approval as an OEM with the Utility. We are currently delivering early-stage orders and have a pipeline for deployments to over 5000 sites in 2022,” she adds.
The company’s ground-breaking initiative has taken the ecosystem by storm and grabbed several accolades and recognitions. TekUncorked LVIoT has made to the list of startups being selected for the second cohort of Zone Startups India’s flagship initiative empower 2017. It has also bagged Azure credits totaling $50,000 extended by Microsoft. The company was also awarded Workspace Credits from Qualcomm. This woman-led startup has acquired its place amongst the finalists of the Qualcomm Women Entrepreneur India Network 2021-an initiative to help women entrepreneurs unleash the potential of their business.
At present, TekUncorked LVIoT holds a business pipeline of $40M and aims to achieve the target of 10B USD YoY in the next 5-6 years. It has chalked out the strategy of building strategic partnerships for expanding its market reach to Europe, the Americas, and Southeast Asia.
“NASSCOM CoE is our Go-To team in times of emergency. During times of tight deadlines, CoE has connected us with multiple suppliers and put in a word for us. The team also helped us connect with the right labs, while we were looking for a NABL certified lab to do some environmental certifications for the LVIoT Connected Edge Device earlier this year,” states Meenakshi Vashist, CEO & Founder, TekUncorked.
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EzeRx: A step towards a Healthier tomorrow!
There is a reason why India is called the diabetes capital of the world! If a survey conducted by International Diabetes Federation is to be considered, India reported about 72 million cases of diabetes in 2017, and this number is believed to increase to around 134 million by 2025. Along with diabetes, kidney disease, deficiency of red blood cells, oxygen saturation is some of the fatal diseases that cause the maximum number of deaths in the country. Delay in diagnosis and timely use of personal health services are some of the major causes behind lethal ailments and slow recovery. People living in rural locations endure the poorer patient experience, as they have insufficient access to necessary and appropriate healthcare services. Even when medical facilities are made available to them, factors like financial situations, inaccurate information, or lack of trust or confidence.
Bhubaneswar-based healthcare &BioTechstartup, EzeRx aims to deal with the ethnic healthcare disparities and make basic medical care affordable, accessible, and available for one and all. Founded by three influential innovators- ParthaPratim Das Mahapatra, Chaitali Roy, and Sudip Roy Chowdhury, EzeRx is focused on bridging the gap between diagnosis and treatment, enabling people to have access to easy and simple medical solutions for early screening and regular health check-ups. The other main intention is to run an awareness campaign to apprise people about diseases and the contemporary healthcare available today.
“More than 66 percent of the Indian population lives in the rural areas and remain deprived of quality, timely, and affordable healthcare facilities. India is reckoned to be the diabetes capital of the world where a majority of the populace also suffers from liver ailments, kidney problems, and anemia. Additionally, one-third of the deaths in the country are caused due to oxygen saturation. Considering the healthcare exigency, we came up with the idea of developing a biomedical device to help people keep a tap on their well-being and prevent chronic diseases,” states ParthaPratim Das Mahapatra, Founder & CEO, EzeRx.
Founded in 2018, the company is supported by a versatile team that strives to make preventive healthcare affordable. They have devoted their effort to developing EzeCheck-a bio-medical, IoT enabled and non-invasive portable device, tailor-made to detect the five vital health parameters such as blood sugar level, hemoglobin, creatinine, bilirubin, and oxygen saturation, along with the capacity of predicting kidney, liver, and lungs problems in a matter of 10 seconds, at a cost of only 35 rupees. The startup has invented a new blood testing procedure in which this radical device does not use even a single drop of blood from the human body. This user-friendly pathological portable screening device is infection-free, affordable, and can be used by anyone without any professional assistance. It is a battery-powered, lightweight, and re-chargeable medical device that makes screening and regular check-ups hassle-free. This helps in the early detection of health problems and enables the patients and the doctors to decide on the best possible treatment and prevention.
EzeCheck’s mode of action can be describes as:
- Users can connect their phones with the device using Bluetooth.
- User can simply put their ring finger on the gadget’s finger bed and fill in the required information.
- The results of the tests are displayed on the app in less than one minute via a single click on the Bluetooth.
- The device is designed to predict haemoglobin levels which help in predicting as well as preventing anaemia. It also helps in reading the bilirubin levels that enables to identify liver problems.
- This non-invasive medical gadget can indicate the presence of abnormal blood sugar levels and elevated creatinine levels which help manage chronic disease like diabetes and kidney malfunction. Its ability of determining the oxygen saturation aids in examining the lung condition.
EzeCheck is a revolutionary tech-driven medical solution that helps prevents the delay in the detection of life-threatening diseases and health conditions, saving millions of lives. It acts as a handy medical kit that can be used during situations when medical services are not approachable or affordable.
EzeRx is entitled to be the most advanced health-tech startup in India that is said to offer World’s first non-invasive treatment. It has won the Aarohan Awards 2019 (Gold Winner), Featured under NASSCOM Foundation Zinnov India Tech Startup Ecosystem Edition 2019, 1st Runner-up of the TATA Social Enterprise Challenge, Most Promising IoTStartup Awards 2019 by TECH PLUS Media, Selected in the Top 51 Most Impactful Social Innovation Award, Recognized in SLUSH-2019 by Finland Embassy, and so and so forth. This ISO-certified startup’s market value stands at 12 crores. In the year 2020, the firm has raised a funding of Rs. 1.75 crore led by Odisha-based incubator KIIT-TBI.
On October 6th, 2021, EzeRx will be deploying its flagship product in most parts of the CHCs and PHCs of various Blocks of Nagjhari village of Sagada Panchayat which is under Sadar Block of
Kalahandi District. “We are sure that our product will aid the district administration in resolving health issues of the vulnerable people of this tribal district and create a healthcare impact by
reaching the last mile,” he adds.
The team of EzeRx is ready and willing to move beyond delivering primary health services to covering a wider spectrum of diagnostics and medications. They are actively looking towards collaborating with stakeholders in the ecosystem and are open to opportunities that will get them good investments and a chance to expand their market presence.
“NASSCOM COE is indeed a great platform for aspiring startups where they get an opportunity to be mentored and nurtured by the experts. It also helps the entrepreneurs connect with different stakeholders in an effort to scale up their businesses,” states Partha Pratim Das Mahapatra, Founder & CEO, EzeRx.
BAGMO: An initiative to provide safe blood to all!
India is said to be one of the developing countries that have been experiencing an acute shortage of blood! The crisis has further aggravated since the onset of COVID-19 with blood donation has been taking a dip since lockdown. The scantiness of blood banks and proper strategies to manage them are some of the major concerns behind blood unapproachability in the rural and inaccessible areas of the nation. Healthcare administration professionals have zeroed in on leveraging cutting-edge technological solutions and innovative ways to meet the need for blood in both urban and remote locations.
BAGMO, a Kerala-based healthcare startup is built to straighten out the blood supply management in the country. BAGMO majorly focuses on mitigating the challenges existing in blood requirement and its attainability, particularly in the remotest areas. A team of clinical engineers, product developers, and public health experts with extensive experience and knowledge are the backbone that supports and fulfills the objectives of BAGMO. By availing modern technology solutions and operations management techniques, they have developed a Blood Bag Monitoring System. Monitoring individual blood bags will help in “vein-to-vein” inventory management, which means tracking and management of blood from donation to transfusion with a high degree of accuracy and reliability. To date, the company has monitored over 40 thousand blood bags, identified 20+ adverse situations, and is on the verge of executing 10+ installations.
This startup has spin-out from BIRAC’s Social Innovation Immersion Program on maternal and child health. BAGMO was one of the twelve startups shortlisted for the fifth edition of the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge (QDIC 2020). The Qualcomm Design in India Challenge is an initiative by Qualcomm started in 2016 that encourages and supports design houses and product companies to design and develop innovative hardware product designs incorporating Qualcomm SoCs platforms and technologies. BAGMO not only received a financial grant of INR 3.2 lakh towards prototyping but also received patent filing incentives of INR 3.2 lakh towards two full utility patent applications.
IIT-Madras alumni, Ashfaq Ashraf, and Anas D are the brains behind BAGMO. This neoteric startup is known to have pioneered a Blood Bank Management System and Cold Chain Monitoring. BAGMO is creating solutions to overcome setbacks during the fragmented blood transfusion service. It has introduced a central monitoring system that can produce a continuous time record of the temperature excursions that each blood storage bag has undergone. The temperature logs can be printed and produced to the blood bank as proof during the return of any blood unit. By making blood available in rural India through its technology, the expert team of BAGMO is looking to empower the current health infrastructure with technology to reduce the number of deaths, especially maternal mortality.
The device is designed to stamp out the non-availability of blood from remote locations and strives to curtail death rates across the nation. Some of the innovations from BAGMO are:
Blood Bag Monitor: The IoT-based blood bank information system keeps a continuous check on the temperature of the blood bags. This decision-supporting technology helps in reducing human effort in maintaining information, retrieval speed and hemovigilance practices.
LoggFi: LoggFi is a digital temperature logger from BAGMO, is a cloud-based portable measuring instrument that autonomously tracks the temperature and location of temperature-sensitive products throughout the cold chain. Recently, the Telangana Government had launched the ‘Medicine from the Sky’ project to deliver medicines and vaccines to rural parts of the state. The project uses drones to deliver medicine, vaccines, and blood samples to remote areas. BAGMO has associated with this project to ensure the quality of the deliverables using its portable temperature logger, LoggFi.
The device uses cellular/Wi-Fi connectivity for continuously sending live data to the cloud. The LoggFi Software helps view and analyze the digital data. If the device goes offline, it stores the live data and uploads them to the cloud when the network resumes. It sends temperature breach alerts to the registered mobile and emails to the authorized persons who then can take corrective measures based on the alarms and avoid damage.
How can BAGMO help in increasing blood availability?
BAGMO assures the quality of blood by tracking blood temperature during storage and logistics. Hence ensuring safety and minimizing wastage. It uses innovative technology to update the inventory of all types of blood. Details of each bag are electronically scanned into the system which enables the doctors to store blood in rural areas. It implements accountability and traceability of blood bags which enables the mother blood bank to take back its unused blood bag within the stipulated time.
Making Headways!
The team got their operations weaving with a small proof of concept that enabled them to bag the Biotech Ignition Grant award of BIRAC. BAGMOused this fund to structure its foundation. The team earned a series of major achievements including securing a grant from BIRAC for conducting pilot studies in Government hospitals, selection to an acceleration program, and equity-based investment by Brinc and IIITMK in 2020. Established in 2017, Bagmo emerged as a shortlisted startup of the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2020, with whose support they have groomed further their products.
BAGMO is gearing to expand its customer base and market reach. The company has deployed services for Jubilee Mission Medical College & Research Institute, Thrissur, Kerala:-Rajagiri Hospital, Ernakulam, Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council, Trivandrum, Government of Kerala and General Hospital Aluva, and King George’s Medical University, Lucknow. The ultimate goal of the team is to support the blood supply chain to improve blood availability and delivery to every corner and reduce the amount of blood wastage. The increasing demand for blood during COVID, saw the startup prioritizing its focus on developing COVID vaccine monitoring solutions.
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OnwardAssIst: A cancer prognostics platform built to help clinicians and oncologists with tools to assist better cancer diagnosis and treatment!
Early diagnosis of cancer is the only key to successful treatment. Timely and accurate medication can help save lives, cut down healthcare costs, and enhance the quality of life in cancer patients. The WHO Guide to Early Diagnosis of Cancer also emphasizes the need to bring in early diagnosis strategies to improve cancer survival.
The co-founders of OnwardAssIst Dinesh Koka and Vikas Ramachandra got theirinspiration out of their conversations with treating oncologists to build solutions that mitigate the challenges and limitations clinician face particularly Oncologists while analyzing complex diseases like cancer and deciding on the type of care to be given to the patients. The duo brainstormed the idea of establishing OnwardAssIst- a Predictive Analytics platform that equips Oncologists with tech-enabled tools and algorithms to help them analyze patients’ data and help decide on the accurate clinical diagnosis as well as treatment decisions. The team of OnwardAssIstcollaborate with leading cancer institutes in India and the US to devise these groundbreaking AI tools.
OnwardAssIst was selected for the Second Cohort of the India Edison TM Accelerator program, powered by GE Healthcare. OnwardAssIst and the other five health-tech startups received mentorship during the cohort period, they worked with the best minds in the industry to co-develop innovative healthcare solutions to address the challenges in the healthcare industry.
The NASSCOM CoE incubated startupdeploys their AI in three key verticals as:
- PathAssist: A full-stack Pathology AI platform that includes an extensive range of AI tools to enhance the efficiency of cancer pathology workflow and improve the accuracy of reporting as well as add new insights. PathAssist is a full-stack solution combining reporting workflow software combined with advanced AI tools that assist in the reporting of cancer biopsies. The platform includes a CE-marked pathology workflow software, alongwith reporting assistance tools for cancer biopsies in Histology and ImmunoHistoChemistry (IHC).Onward’s current research includes reporting of new markers with significance in treatment decisions involving immunotherapy.
- RadAssist:This platform includesMachine Learning-based tools to enable the radiology reporting workflow for the detection of tumors, malignant module in mammograms and chest xrays.
- Tumor Board AI: This supports the Tumor Board in assimilating the patient information and segregating them into risk-based or sub-groups based on response patterns.
The company has been active in implementing solutions to assist the diagnostic processes during the pandemic. Building on the in-house expertise in data science and extending their own telepathology platform, OnwardAssIst has devised an automated and Telepathology powered analytical tool that integrates with RT-PCR machines, helping microbiologists to analyze the gene plots to ensure comprehensive and accurate telereportingaiding staff safety as well as strong audit trails.
Furthermore, OnwardAssIst’sTelePathology solution plays a significant role in enabling pathologists to remotely report cases while improving access to diagnostic expertise.
In fouryears of its existence, OnwardAssIst has gathered several noteworthy achievements and recognitions. Its tech-driven solutions have been widely appraised and deployed by leading pathologists and hospitals across the country. OnwardAssIstis part of IIM-A’s CIIE (Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship) seed program, and a member of the Yale Sustainable Health Initiative in India, run by the CoWrks Foundry.
As a member of the MedTech cohort at Ojas Incubator, the startup had raised seed funding from IIIT Foundation (International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad). It has recently been selected for the Lumos’ premier Healthcare speed scaling program bringing clinical, technical, and business advisory to the startup scale-up. The startup has also received agrant throughthe Innovation Challenge organized by the Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH), a Government of Telangana initiative and recently won the JanCare Grand Challenge by DST-BIRAC and Nasscom FoundationThe company isawinner of the Microsoft Emerge X program from 2020.
Onward’s technology has been feted at multiple forums; Onward won in the Healthcare &LifeSciences category at the Amazon AI Conclave 2021. Onward is alsoa winner of the prestigious Emerge 50 2020, a marathon search for India’s most innovative and emerging software product companies, and many others.
What does the future look like for OnwardAssIst!!
Dinesh,Vikas and teamcontinue to build algorithms for targeted cancer biomarker through their clinical partnerships to further complement the platform and accelerate towards their vision of better outcomes. They are currently focused on expanding their market reach. Over the last 1 year, they started commercial deployments of their solutions and plan to continue initiatingnew innovations that will provide building blocks to the way cancer is diagnosed, analyzed and treated.
MedPrime Technologies: Developing customer-centric solutions to increase accessibility and affordability of healthcare facilities!
To provide quality healthcare to one and all is the ultimate mission and vision of the global healthcare ecosystem. This determination sparked off numerous medical inventions that have significantly enhanced healthcare delivery practices across the globe. The collective effort of the Indian healthcare industry has created opportunities to augment the sector and confer quality and timely care to the populace. A medical device company MedPrime Technologies perceives the significance of technological innovations to stimulate the transformation of the healthcare ecosystem. The company is earnestly developing pre-eminent customer-centric solutions to surfeit the necessities of the healthcare industry across the globe. The company has set its sight on developing the best diagnostic services available to every individual irrespective of their geographic location through digitization and automation.
Four alumni of IIT Bombay with Biomedical Engineering Postgraduate degrees, Samrat, Greeshma Unnikrishnan, Binil Jacob, and Mahesh Kumar Rathor are the brains behind this innovative firm. They share a joint vision of deploying contemporary technology solutions to transform the healthcare industry. They aim to develop the best diagnostic services and make them available to everyone irrespective of their geographic location through digitization and automation. The quartet has put their heads together to build patent-approved, digital portable and desktop microscopes that are suitable for diagnostic and research applications. Their groundbreaking innovation is a range of exclusive Tablet integrated microscopes called Cilika- designed to capture high-quality images and videos that can be live-streamed or instantly shared via e-mails or any messaging app.
This facility enables pathology labs to operate in the hub and spoke model where the doctor can look at the samples and diagnose remotely, reducing the time and effort invested in the process of diagnosis and treatment. These user-friendly device supports:
- Its high definition touchscreen display with a variable angle provides an incredible user experience, unmatched comfort and crystal clear images.
- The study of the sample for hours with reduced strain and health hazards.
- The ability to capture images, videos, annotate, measure and project samples with just a click makes it an ideal tool for education in medicine and biological sciences.
- Cilika’s Benchtop attribute surfeits the needs of users who prefer the familiarity and sturdiness of traditional desktop microscope designs.
- For care providers who diagnose and treat ailments from work to home and lab to field, portable Cilika supports them with high quality imaging.
MedPrime Technologies is 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. It has been shortlisted for the Jury Round for the Digitising Pathology use case of Healthcare Innovation Challenge (HIC), organized by CoE to enable digital adoption in the Healthcare sector.
“We take pride in saying that we have been successful in creating a niche for ourselves and grabbed the attention of stakeholders in the ecosystem. Cilika is the world’s first Tablet integrated microscope that is suitable for diagnosis and we are quite optimistic about bringing in innovations that can give a new definition to the nation’s microscopy-based diagnostics,” states Samrat, Founder of MedPrime Technologies.
Recently, the Mumbai Angels Network in a Seed round led by Social Alpha has announced an investment (undisclosed amount) in this health tech startup. The startup intends to use this funding for the enhancement of its Cilika product line and make it more profitable. Besides this, it also plans to use this money for developing digital solutions to the microscopy segment of medical diagnostics and design AI components for MICALYS. SINE IIT Bombay, RiSo Capital, Lavni Ventures, and Keiretsu Forum also participated in the round.
For the time to come, MedPrime Technologies aspires to extend its business across the country and overseas and further innovate solutions that decipher the healthcare challenges. The company’s future vision is to leverage Machine Learning to further automate its products and solutions.
“NASSCOM CoE-IoT & AI provides a high-energy and inspiring work environment, not to mention the infinite networking opportunities with other entrepreneurs, mentors, experts, and corporates. CoE has a good reach in the corporate sector and utilizes it for the benefit and growth of its startups. CoE was instrumental in getting us big break with Dr. Lal Pathlabs and we have executed a few deployments for them.” Greeshma Unnikrishnan, Co-Founder, MedPrime Technologies.
Synapsica: Improving Radiology with AI-based Solutions!
Radiology has been playing a pivotal role in the medical industry for over a century now. It is one of the medical sciences that has witnessed thorough technological evolution. The adoption of technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or Deep Learning has boosted the efficiency of MRI, CT and X ray procedures, redefined the way radiologists perform diagnoses and treat ailments.
Despite the tremendous progress, this sector still withstands several challenges such as the shortage of proficient radiologists, imaging complexities, lower reimbursements, and many more. Innovators are constantly probing cutting-edge technologies to think up medical innovations to address the problems and improve the radiology workflow.
Three young and aspiring pathfinders Meenakshi Singh, Dr. Cherian, and Kuldeep Singh Chauhan with the passion to avail technology and the vision to improve healthcare delivery created Synapsica. It is a cloud-based platform designed for creating AI-first PACS and radiology workflow solutions that are fast, secure, and automate reporting tasks, helping radiologists create high quality reports quicker. The aim was to use Computer Vision & Deep Learning based software products to assist diagnosis in X-Ray, CT and MRI scans. Through this, the trio intend to bring diagnostic centers, radiologists, and patients under one roof and give shape to the mission of using AI to deliver efficiency in clinical analysis and reporting.
Synapsica is one of the six startups selected by GE Healthcare as a part of their Edison Programme-the first cohort of its first India-based startup collaboration program, Edison[X]. The startup was bestowed with the opportunity to work with experts from the healthcare industry to develop solutions that can mitigate healthcare challenges.
“At Synapsica, we use AI to re-establish the declining clinician-radiologist trust. Our multi-media reports with comparative graphs and pictures bring transparency and provide treating physicians an objective reference for diagnosis while also reducing reporting times,” says Meenakshi Singh, Co-Founder & CEO, Synapsica.
New-Delhi based Synapsica makes Tele-radiology available and accessible by all. The team has created AI reporting assistants that will help radiologists in the following way:
- Synapsica Spindle: An AI reporting assistant for MRI Spine that generates preliminary reports with necessary spinal measurements and characterisation of degenerative disc diseases.
- Synapsica Spindlex: This AI reporting assistant for spinal Digital Motion X-Rays generates fully automated reports that quantify all abnormalities and features of injuries or early degeneration.
- Synapsica Crescent: The AI assistant for Chest X Rays identifies presence of abnormalities in chest X ray scans. It also grades the risk scores in the scan and automatically creates report allocations in the radiology panel for normal and abnormal cases.
One of the prominent inventions of Synapsica is the RadioLens. It is the first of it’s kind, Radiology RIS/PACS solution that uses AI to automate both clinical and back-office operations reducing manual intervention required in Radiology diagnostic workflow.
This device enables clinical collaboration, provides workflow efficiency, and enables well-informed decision-making. It is known for creating reports with objective evidence of disease and illustrative annotated images that zeroes in on the exact location and extent of pathology with zero additional effort. RadioLens allows Radiologists to quickly edit AI results or directly import them in reports with a single button click. RadioLens benefits the users with:
- Fast image uploads and downloads. Supports automated assignments for workload optimizations and offers 24/7 support to its customers.
- Its light-weight DICOM Viewer allows to open cases even from mobile devices.
- The AI enabled quantitative and qualitative actionable insights help improve communication with referring clinicians and insurance providers.
- With intelligent reporting templates, it is designed to help Radiologists save time in typing reports while avoiding common mistakes.
- Users can use the operations dashboard from anywhere and at any time using cloud solutions which removes on site presence constraints.
- Equipped with 5 backup servers, the solution assures uninterrupted businesses and enables to track business in real-time with quick data based notifications flashing on the devices.
Tech solutions of Synapsica are trusted and used by over 250+ doctors across 500+ hospitals, Diagnostic & Teleradiology centers. With each passing day, the startup is gaining positive momentum and growing rapidly, along with serving and collaborating with significant industry leaders. In July 2021, Synapsica has announced a funding of $4.2 million in a Series-A round backed by VC funds IvyCap Ventures and Endiya Partners.
The future is bright for Synapsica! The company is determined about investing ideas and effort in infusing technology into reporting of traumatic injuries in CT scans, introducing new standards for spine reporting in Radiology. It aims to make the process of reporting entirely automatic, error-free, and transparent. With offices in New Delhi and Bangalore the startup is all geared to set its foot in the international market with the target to gain onboard partners in the United States.
“NASSCOM CoE-IT is a great platform for deep tech and IoT startups to showcase their solutions and helps build a well-rounded innovative tech ecosystem for entrepreneurs and new age thinkers. Kudos and good luck to you guys and thanks for thinking of us to be a small part of this journey,” Meenakshi Singh, Co-Founder & CEO, Synapsica.”
4baseCare: Using Advanced Genomic Solutions & Next-Gen Digital Technology to Revolutionize Precision Oncology!
Genomics is playing an incredible role in actuating a paradigm shift in the mannerism of oncology care, treatments, and researches. The coalescence of the next-generation sequencing and advanced technologies is helping us understand the behaviour, diversities, and complexities of oncology which is on the other hand enabling healthcare providers to expedite and improve the process of diagnosis and extend meticulous treatment. The causes of cancer differ from person to person, the use of genomics can empower physicians to not only perceive and interpret the actual cause but also unearth how it may progress and respond to medication.
Despite the potential advantages, genomics in healthcare is subjected to certain challenges and limitations in India. Limited genetic data, clinical data, and inadequate medical record management are some of the current issues affecting the full-fledged integration of genomics in Indian medicine.
4baseCare-a precision oncology company aims to mitigate this gap in India’s Cancer Care and accelerate the wide-scale adoption of genomics techniques in formulating medicine for oncology treatment. Backed by Illumina- the world’s leading firm that develops next-generation sequencing machines, the company is personalizing cancer care using two solutions: Advanced Genomics and Next-Gen Digital Health.
This startup is incubated by BBC and IBAB, partners with Wipro and is pioneering unique, patient-centric solutions with the end in view to build the largest database of comprehensive, longitudinal clinical and genomic information from the myriad and under-presented populations.
4BaseCare is the brainchild of Kshitij D. Rishi and Hitesh Goswami. They have a strong background in genomics and cancer research and share the common goal of leveraging the potential of new-fangled technologies and Genomic solutions to revolutionize Precision Oncology in Asia. Their idea took shape under the mentorship of a robust team of cancer researchers, bioinformaticians, data scientists and genomic professionals. They have formulated two persuasive solutions that can be categorized as
- Genomics
4BaseCare performs the DNA and RNA sequencing to generate high-quality somatic and germline molecular data thus empowering physicians to make data-driven personalized treatment decisions for their cancer patients. Further classified as:
4BaseCare’s target portfolio tests are validated to identify somatic mutations in the tumour tissue with high sensitivity and specificity to detect even low frequency genomic alterations. The team uses in-house developed custom algorithms to provide the most updated and best treatment recommendations.
The hereditary Cancer Risk test – Germline+ allows one to identify specific variations in the genes which are known to be associated with cancer.
- OncoBuddy
A 360-degree digital healthcare platform that aims at building a unified and Patient-centric ecosystem to provide holistic support to patients in their fight against cancer. Its AI-powered medical record management plays a key role in assisting the clinical decision making and simplifies patient-doctor interactions.
In the year 2019, 4BaseCare was selected for the 10th funding cycle of the Illumina Accelerator Program. That very year, the startup also won the Elevate 2019 program- an initiative by the Government of Karnataka and Dept of IT&BT, and secured a grant of Rs. 35 lakh. It also bagged about $2m in a pre-series A round led by Mount Judi Ventures, growX ventures, Season Two Ventures, First In Ventures, and a few strategic angel investors. It intends to avail this fund to expand the genomic tests portfolio and extend its geographical presence across Asia.
The company has a strong research focus and had recently partnered with ACTREC-Tata Memorial Centre for building an AI-based clinical interpretation platform called ClinOme. 4baseCare has launched TarGT Indiegene, World’s first Indian population-specific cancer gene panel developed by comprehensively profiling the whole exome (DNA) and transcriptome (RNA) of tumor tissues from 1500+ cancer patients across India. The startups claims to have built the largest resource of mutational signatures identified in cancer patients in India. They have identified mutations in 1044 unique genes across 28 cancer types with mutational landscape covering SNVs, CNVs, InDels, and Gene Fusions. The research was done in collaboration with academic and medical researchers from ACTREC-TMC, AIIMS, Shankara Hospital, St John’s Research Institute, Yenepoya Medical College, Gangaram Hospital, Fortis Hospital (Bangalore), and The Yellow Ribbon Cancer clinic.
AiAi.care:An Endeavour to optimize open source X-rays screening using Deep Learning!
In developing countries like India where the population is huge and medical facilities and experienced staffs are sparse, quality and reachable care are quite hard to come by especially for people living in the remotest areas. Hence, making healthcare affordable and accessible to people everywhere is the sole vision of the healthcare ecosystem. Established organizations, as well as the startup community, are relentlessly combining forces to boost parity in medical management.
One of the medical fields that have been receiving increasing attention over the past few years is the discipline of radiology. Radiologists and digital health enthusiasts are working hard to bring a dramatic upswing in the imaging devices & interpretations, MRI, guidelines, and skilled technicians to help the industry meet the healthcare crisis that has mushroomed with the advent of the COVID pandemic.
The radiology of the chest, often referred to as chest X-rays helps physicians to detect and medicate life-threatening ailments. However, these potential tests are extremely time-consuming. The use of feudal machines, techniques, and practices are a few more reasons that have heightened the complexities in this sector.
To resolve the challenges in radiology, Keyur K Mithawala an enthusiast and Researcher at Standford University along with a team of AI and Radiology experts from around the world initiated an open-source code charity project calledAiAi.care. The team has designed a Tuberculosis (TB) screening device that can screen X-rays in 45 seconds. This CAD (Computer-Aided Detection) algorithm can scan Chest X-Rays using Deep Learning models for Lung Cancer nodule detection and registration. Physician, X-ray centers, and other Primary Health Centers (PHC) can now take pictures with their mobile phones, point it at the X-ray and get the screening done in few seconds.
The team has leveraged 700,000 labeled chest X-Rays dataset + Deep Learning to build an FDA-approved, open-source screening tool for Tuberculosis, COVID-19, and Lung Cancer. They are diligently unearthing inventive measures to upgrade their algorithm to screen COVID-19 pneumonia. The tool’s algorithm has the potential of delivering expert-panel-grade TB screening capabilities and is re-trainable.AiAi.care ‘sagile and accurate services can help hospitals in the early diagnosis of Tuberculosis and Lung Cancer.
This open-source organization has also proposed an ML screening tool for lung cancer detection with class-leading sensitivity and specificity that is capable of abridging the obstacle of radiologist shortage and missed diagnosis opportunities. This Machine Learning screening invention is competent of ensuring survival rates by 5X through early detection.The team of AiAi.carehas brainstormed a unique approach of teaching computers the techniques to see X-rays and screen them for the symptoms of Tuberculosis.
AiAi.carehas set its goal on putting an end to the commercial CAD algorithms by applying the latest breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, ensembling, and data augmentation. This furtherance can help healthcare professional shave prowess over diagnosis, treatment and medication. It aims to distribute its service for free to developing countries (Vietnam, India, and Belarus), charitable hospitals, and organizations like WHO.
The company aims to become the world’s first FDA-approved, open-source CAD that will distribute the AiAi.careCAD for free to every emerging nation like India, Vietnam, and Belarus, and also to charitable hospitals as well as organizations such as WHO.AiAi.careteam is driven by the desire to solve the “lottery of birth” which means it intends to help people in remote places with little access to quality medical care get world-class X-ray diagnosis. Furthermore, the company looks forward to collaborating with industry experts, innovative minds, and social groups to work together and make healthcare affordable and accessible to one and all.
“A lot of computer engineers owe gratitude to NasscomCoE, an organization that championed the IT industry and created opportunities for meaningful careers for us all. Today, CoE is leading an even more powerful mission, by encouraging AI innovation for challenging national problems like healthcare and agriculture. I am certain that CoE’s leadership will play a pivotal role in India’s future prosperity” says Keyur K Mithawala, Founder and CTO, AiAi.care.
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For any further information\query you can write to us at Co-innovate@nasscom.in.
