Cybernet Installs Satellite at UM Healthcare Trust

So it is official now. Cybernet, Pakistan's largest Internet Service Provider, as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility, has donated dedicated internet access via VSAT Satellite to UM Healthcare Trust's medical hospital in remote village of Zahidabad, Mardan District, NWFP, Pakistan.

The satellite based internet access will enable us to run Tele-healthcare services in collaboration with APPNA doctors in the USA as well as perform analysis on medical records to track pandemic diseases in real time using NUST's SUN based cluster for high performance computing.

This is yet another positive step towards the realization of extending affordable healthcare to the rural and needy population of Mardan District using ICT.

Cybernet and UM Healthcare Trust will be replicating this tele-healthcare services at other medical facilities in rural areas as well and connecting them with specialists and doctors in the cities.

Free Medical Camp in Rural Mardan

This past weekend, (May 31, 2008) UM Healthcare Trust (our nonprofit organization for healthcare in Pakistan) organized an extremely successful free medical camp for the poor and needy at remote Village of Zahidabad in rural Mardan District, NWFP.

Patients had begun flocking the facility from early in the morning and continued to come till late in the evening. In all, over 180 patients were treated by specialists for mother and child health related diseases. The doctors who had driven specially to Mardan from Lahore to partake in this endeavor were extremely pleased with the outcome. "We shall be back again with even more doctors in the coming future" mentioned Dr. Muzammil Zaidi (Pediatrician).

Free medicines were also distributed among the needy patients.

Such medical camps will now become a regular feature of UM Healthcare Trust "Healthcare Outreach Program". The last Saturday of each month is now designated as "Free Camp Weekend". Hence, if any doctor/nurse wants to donate their time and effort, please let us know and we would be happy to schedule you in.

Event in Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/mumtaz.atif/FreeMedicalCamp

The project got funded!

So this has just been confirmed. The Jaroka tele-health project, that we are developing has received further boost as it successfully received joint grant funding from USAID and HEC. Our's was one of the 19 applications that got funded from a pool of 116. The funding is for two years, commencing from April 1, 2008 to develop and deploy the Jaroka tele-health system for rural Mardan district (NWFP, Pakistan) and for capacity building of local healthcare professionals including Lady Health Workers. The project will also deploy Pakistan's first mobile based tele-health services in rural Pakistan. Once successful, it will be replicated in other parts/districts of Pakistan.

The project provides financial support to procure medical equipment, essential hardware to run tele-health services and even covers the salaries of two medical doctors and other healthcare professionals..

Our partners in this grant are APPNA, NUST, UM Healthcare Trust and Cogilent Solutions.

DHL YES Awards Results

The results are in. I secured 2nd Runner's up prize for the DHL YES Awards for Young Social Entrepreneur of 2007 in the nationwide competition in Pakistan for my Jaroka, Tele-health project that I have been pursuing.

The DHL YES Awards aim to recognize and celebrate the contribution of young individuals who are evolving existing and/or using new innovative methods to bring about positive social change in their communities.

DHL has put together a case study document of all social entrepreneurs who received the DHL YES Awards. Please read the case study document to find out more about these outstanding individuals and their work.

Please click here to see the pictures from the award ceremony on August 24, 2007 in Karachi, Pakistan.

Finalist in DHL YES Awards for Social Entrepreneurship

This year (2007), DHL has launched the DHL Young Entrepreneurs for Sustainability Awards (DHL YES Awards) for Asia Pacific region. The goal of the award is to identify and recognise the contributions of young people who are implementing new and innovative methods and practices to bring about positive social change in their communities. Such young individuals are usually referred to as 'social entrepreneurs'.

The inaugural DHL YES Awards take place in 2007 in five countries: Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

I also submitted my Tele-healthcare Jaroka project to this competition. After the preliminary interviews, project document submissions, and presentations, I have been informed that I have made it among the finalists in Pakistan. This in itself is a great achievement and recognition of the innovative work done by Tele-healthcare team in Pakistan.

The DHL appointed jury shall now decide upon the final winner from Pakistan who will then compete with the winners from the rest of the region for the regional award.

Invitation to Attend IDC Conference

I have been invited to attend the IDC 2007 Conference at Harvard University as a panelist. I will be part of the technology and healthcare panel. The panel will discuss and explore the innovations in providing access to healthcare.

The other fellow panel members are:

• Rahul Tongia, Carnegie Mellon University, Professor Engineering and Public policy, Moderator
• Jorge Briones, Partner, Deloitte Mexico
• Atif Mumtaz, Research Fellow and Project Manager (Stanford Tele-healthcare, Reuters Digital Vision Program)
• Ian Rawson, Board Chair-Hopital Albert Schweitzer Haiti
• Naeem Rizwan, Associate Professor Baylor College of Medicine

The details of the conference can be found on their official website, of the 13th International Development Conference at Harvard University.

Stanford University and NIIT Collaboration

NUST Institute of Information technology (NIIT) and Stanford University, USA are currently collaborating on Tele-healthcare initiative of Reuters Digital Vision Program (DVP). DVP is geared to bringing together people engaged in developing technology-based solutions to address humanitarian, educational, and sustainable development issues.

Mr. Atif Mumtaz is the proposer and initiater of Jaroka, Tele-healthcare for rural communities, one of the major ongoing DVP projects. Jaroka is a web-based tele-healthcare portal that enables clinicians operating in rural and disaster-affected communities to rapidly access expert advice and opinions from specialists around the world. NIIT has formed a dedicated team comprising its faculty members and young students to make this project a viable success. The project is progressing under the supervision of Dr. Arshad Ali (Director General NIIT). Actively associated with the project are Dr. Amir Shafi, Mr. Adnan Iqbal, Ms. Shamila Keyani, and a dedicated band of NIIT students. The project team is now working towards telemedicine initiative within the NIIT premises. Seminars on relevant topics are held every Wednesday and progress of the students is monitored on a regular basis. NIIT has been able to persuade Army Medical College (AMC) to institute their first medical collaboration with NIIT and Stanford.

NUST Institute of Information Technology is committed to putting forth a novel and stimulating research idea and an equally conducive research environment for its incubation and fruition. The main impetus behind this effort and commitment is the passion to pursue projects bearing on fulfillment of high-value social and national needs in the commercially competitive world of today. NIIT-Stanford collaboration is destined to greatly facilitate development of cutting edge technology in the field of Tele-health care.

Jaroka, Tele-healthcare participates in IDEAS Competition

Jaroka, Tele-healthcare project participated in the IDEAS competition at MIT. The IDEAS Competition encourages student teams to develop and implement projects that make a positive change in the world. The project was one of the few cross collaboration between Stanford University and MIT.

The competition gave us a unique insight of how other students were developing ideas to bring about social change in the developing world. It also brought us in contact with other fellow students with like minded ideas.

Skardu Telemedicine

Tele-healthcare's jaroka project, in collaboration with APPNA, Digital Vision Program at Stanford University and COMSATS have initiated a pilot project for testing and studying the prospects of managing a remote telemedicine center with specialists located in the USA. The remote health facility is located in Skardu Pakistan, a remote town in the Himalayan mountainous region of Pakistan.

The details of the project can be found on Tele-healthcare website under Skardu Project.

It should be noted that this is Pakistan's first Tele-medicine project which connected patients in a rural Skardu with international specialists in Boston, USA.

Construction of UM Healthcare Hospital

The construction of the UM Healthcare hospital is underway in the village Zahidabad. This hospital is being built on a four kanal land in Mardan District of NWFP (North West Frontier Province) and is a ray of hope for the rural community. The village is 180KM North of Islamabad, Pakistan.

The basic statistics of the district include:

Population: 1.6 Million people

District Hospitals: 2

Basic Health Units: 50

Infant Mortality Rate: 76/1000 child births

Maternal Mortality Rate: 201/1000 live births

Tech Nation with Dr. Moira Gunn

Tech Nation will broadcast interviews of the select few Reuters Digital Vision Fellows on March 21st, 2006. The weekly National Public Radio program is hosted by Dr. Moira Gunn. It focuses on impact of technology in the lives of individuals.

Stuart Gannes, the Director of the Reuters Digital Vision Program at Stanford University, as well as this year’s Digital Vision Fellows talk about global projects with a humanitarian bent – from citizen journalism on simple cellphones, to tele-healthcare for developing nations, and multimedia for the street kids of Rio.