'Jugaad-a-thon' sees former winners return for talents

As GE Healthcare held the second edition of its annual hackathon, ‘Jugaad-a-thon’ on its campus in Bengaluru this weekend, and the last year’s winners were back on the campus as start-ups in search of talents.

Babysteps and Saans weren’t start-ups when they participated in the Jugaad-a-thon last year. The term jugaad means an innovative fix or a simple work-around, and the word originated from Hindi and Urdu.

Both had won accolades for their innovation in the early development stages and post-natal baby care, respectively.

Babysteps looks at stages of child development and makes parents aware of the normal development stages of a baby as it grows up. The concept, developed by Neha Kumar, an Assistant Professor in Georgia Tech, Atlanta, and Dr Rajesh Chandwani, a pediatrician, is an assistant professor at IIM-Ahmedabad, have taken the shape of an android app and is in the beta stages of development. The app helps parents track stages in the growth of their baby and reminds them of vaccinations in a timely manner.

Additionally, the app performs like a baby book where parents can store photos, videos of their child in its different growth stages. This can also act as a personal record book while consulting a clinician.

Similarly, Saans, the other winner of ‘Jugaad-a-thon’ in 2014, has developed a portable device that works without electricity to produce a pressurised environment that helps a baby’s lungs to be kept open to allow air in and ease breathing.

This device comes handy in cases where the baby has developed breathing troubles and needs to be shifted to another hospital. However, the course of journey proves fatal for at least 30 per cent of these newborns in India due to the lack of a portable incubated condition that helps them sustain. The start-up is currently incubated at InnAccel, Bengaluru.

The second edition of ‘Jugaad-a-thon’ also went ahead with the same theme as the first one. According to the organisers, this is primarily because majority of the studies find the roots of health disorders in the early stages of development of a child. Moreover, an invention in the field of healthcare takes a long time to go commercial, due to numerous field trials and regulations it has to undergo.

The ‘Jugaad-a-thon’, this year, garnered interest from over 400 participants to develop technologies that provide affordable and accessible healthcare facilities in India. However, the number was capped at 250.

Lattice Innovations, a group that offers medical technology design and development services and CAMTech, a US Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded public-private partnership, were the partners of the hackathon.

GE South Asia and Wipro on Wednesday announced the appointment of Milan Rao as President and CEO, GE Healthcare South Asia and Managing Director of Wipro GE Healthcare. GE Healthcare operates in India through a joint venture with Wipro known as Wipro GE Healthcare Private Limited.

According to Milan Rao, President and CEO, GE Healthcare South Asia and Managing Director of Wipro GE Healthcare, of about 5,300 employees GE has in India, almost 1,600 work in healthcare innovations. The company has about 3,000 patents from GE Healthcare India alone.