TECHNOLOGY REVIEW NAMES VIKRAM SHEEL KUMAR,
PRESIDENT AND CEO OF DIMAGI, TECHNOLOGY
HUMANITARIAN OF THE YEAR
Kumar Honored For His Innovative Work in
Designing Interactive Systems That Enable Management
of Chronic Diseases in Large, Rural Communities
CAMBRIDGE , MA , September 30, 2004 –
Today at its annual Emerging Technologies Conference
at MIT (http://www.tretc.com), Technology Review,
MIT's Magazine of Innovation, announced that
it has awarded its annual “Technology in
the Service of Humanity” award to Dr. Vikram
Sheel Kumar, President and Chief Executive Officer
of Dimagi, Inc.
Kumar, 28, is being honored for Dimagi's work
in developing interactive systems that motivate
health workers and patients to care for and
manage chronic diseases. His innovative technologies
include:
• Ca:sh, a mobile electronic medical record
(EMR) system designed to be used by outreach
workers in large communities to address the
problems of poor data flow and logistical support
for rural paramedical workers, such as those
in the State of Haryana , India . Dimagi, in
association with Media Lab Asia and the All
India Institute of Medical Sciences, developed
a handheld software application to facilitate
ordered data collection, immunization scheduling,
pre-natal care for pregnant mothers and recording
routine demographic changes in the community.
In operation since February 2002, Ca:sh's greatest
supporters are the paramedical workers who no
longer need to spend long hours manually transferring
data from one ledger to the next. While in the
field, the health workers are able to access
previously unavailable data and benefit from
the point of care decision support provided
by the application. The system currently records
and manages data from over 70,000 patients.
• DiaBetNet™, an integrated software
system designed for the millions of children
all over the world suffering from juvenile type
I diabetes. DiaBetNet helps children monitor
their diabetic status and teaches them about
controlling a disease that most will have to
live with throughout their lives. Intuitive
games encourage children to measure and predict
their sugar levels, while wireless technology
transmits readings to a central database accessible
to the children's doctors. In addition to facilitating
the transfer of data from a patient to a centralized
server, DiaBetNet builds a valuable support
community for the patient.
• HIV Confidant, a system that uses handheld
computers to confidentially distribute HIV results
in a surveillance project at the Africa Centre
for Health and Population Studies in northern
KwaZulu-Natal , South Africa . The system combines
the advantages of linked anonymous HIV surveillance
with the opportunity to offer patents counseling
on their status without having to have a second
blood sample taken.
Kumar was chosen from among Technology Review's
2004 TR100, a group of 100 individuals under
age 35 whose innovative work in technology promises
to have a profound impact on the world. Hailing
from 14 countries, this year's nominees are
recognized for their contributions in trans
form ing the nature of technology in industries
such as biotechnology, computing, and nanotechnology.
The 2004 list includes innovators from well-know
companies and institutions such as Amazon.com
(NASDAQ: AMZN), Carnegie Mellon University ,
IBM (NYSE: IBM), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Harvard
University , Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), MIT,
and Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN).
Technology Review's complete TR100 list appears
in the October 2004 issue of Technology Review,
available currently at http://www.technologyreview.com
and on newsstands September 28, 2004.
About Technology Review, Inc.
Technology Review, Inc., a MIT Enterprise,
delivers essential in form ation about emerging
technologies and their impact on leaders. Since
1998, paid U.S. circulation for the company's
magazine, Technology Review, has more than tripled,
climbing from 92,000 to 315,000. With foreign
editions recently launched in China , Italy
, Germany and The Netherlands, the exposure
of Technology Review magazine, combined with
the company's signature events, newsletters,
and online businesses, reaches over two million
business leaders throughout the world each month.
For more in form ation, see http://www.technologyreview.com
.
