HCL Tech to invest $750K in University of California's health lab project

Funding to be spread over three years, project team will work on innovations in the areas of rapid problem-solving, prototyping and testing of breakthrough healthcare technologies

HCL Technologies on Wednesday said it was committing $750,000 over the course of three years in a partnership with University of California, Berkeley to create a Health Technology Collaborative Laboratory (“CoLab”) housed in the Blum Center for Developing Economies on the university’s campus in Berkeley, California. 

The CoLab’s teams will work on health technology innovations to meet the challenges in a new age of healthcare. These activities will include rapid problem-solving, prototyping and testing of breakthrough healthcare technologies. 

This partnership aims to bring together stakeholders in healthcare (patients, clinicians, regulators and insurers), the business community and investors to create and commercialise solutions from initial concept through the stages of prototyping, systems architecture and scalable distribution. 

The CoLab is being launched over the backdrop of the Covid-19 global pandemic created an urgent need for timely access to therapeutics and diagnostics with telemedicine and telesurgery are more important than ever. 

“As a responsible global technology leader, we are proud to contribute and support the creation of macro-scale solutions to healthcare issues for a better future for all,” said G H Rao, President, Engineering and R&D Services, HCL Technologies. 

“HCL’s commitment, combined with its vision for technology innovation and its global reach, will allow us to realize the goals of the CoLab quickly,” said Daniel Fletcher, Associate Director for Research of the Blum Center, Purnendu Chatterjee Chair of Bioengineering, and Director of the CoLab.

HCL also has investments across the global health technology industry, and in recent times has provided significant contributions in the United States to the CDC Foundation, United Way, Gates Foundation and Feeding America to enable and advance healthcare solutions. HCL’s recent investments in multiple innovation and delivery centers in the US will further create jobs and bring focus to solving critical social, medical and economic challenges posed by the pandemic.