UPD: May 27, 2020.
If you ask anyone what the biggest valuable of a human being is, the answer will certainly be related to health. Health is what everyone needs to be able to live happily.
Unfortunately, there are so many diseases that make people suffer. We have found how to treat many of them, but we still are not able to cure cancer, HIV/AIDS and, frankly speaking, other viral illnesses such as SARS/MERS.
This row has been recently extended with Covid-19, a novel coronavirus-induced disease.
Covid-19 Stats
Firstly originated in China in December 2019, Covid-19 has spread across the entire world during the following 6 months.
Now, in late May of 2020, the planet reports over 5.5 million of Covid-19 patients of which nearly 350 thousands have died.
World’s Efforts against Covid-19
Huge numbers that could have been even more significant if mankind hadn’t imposed strict but necessary limitations of people’s freedoms and rights, in particular those relating to travels and communications. Face masks, safety gloves, #stayathome etc. serve as a means to protect all of us.
The Covid-19 pandemic effects have also been mitigated to a certain degree by a breathtaking number of social initiatives and disruptive healthcare startups. There are hundreds of new businesses that promote their innovative ideas and services, which help us save human lives or, at least, help them live through this serious force-majeure.
Venture capitalists and governments have launched various platforms, hackathons, and supportive platforms all aimed at detecting and landing a hand to companies and individuals who discover new concepts and ideas of healthcare delivery.
Anti-Covid Initiatives and Startups
In the course of our analysis of the current status, we have distinguished the following platforms where such promising startups are receiving their deserved recognition:
- StartupsVsCovid19 – Luxembourg’s government initiative aimed at selecting and supporting the best startups to develop innovative solutions to combat the health and economic crisis.
- COVID Challenge Hackathon – The Project of Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation focused on finding those startups that will help counter the effects of the global pandemic for Ukraine.
- StartUp Health – An online platform providing the latest news and updates on the Covid-19 situation and serving as a knowledge-sharing platform for businesses, governments, and population.
The above platforms have discovered multiple startups that certainly are and will be bringing the quality of healthcare to a new level, but we have created our own short list:
- AR Spectra – mobile headsets equipped with thermal sensors and an augmented reality capability allowing detection of elevated skin temperatures and potential Covid contagion.
- Sovi – an application to improve communication between Covid-19 patients intubated in intensive care and caregivers, thanks to a technology combining artificial voice and a pictogram system.
- Cardio.AI – an AI-enabled system automatically annotate and interpret any ECGs that provides an improved convenience for doctors and increased accuracy of ECGs results for patients
- Force Therapeutics – Delivering evidence-based care plans with rich video content to help patients recover from injury and surgery in the home to reduce their time spent in the hospital to minimize the risk of interacting with potentially COVID-19-infected patients. Patients connect with their own providers via asynchronous and synchronous HIPAA-compliant communication channels.
- access.mobile – Providing COVID-19 related mobile communications, COVID-19 health education, and health system navigation. They are working with health systems in the U.S. and South Africa at this critical time, and they are reaching hundreds of thousands of people with important information on COVID-19 via preferred mobile channels including SMS and USSD.
- Myontec – Detecting early signs of COVID-19, progress of disease, and degree of urgency through their joint smart clothing solution to measure vital bio-signals (ECG, EMG, temperature, breathing etc.) remotely.
- Carbon Health – A simple and free Coronavirus Assessment Tool to better understand risks of the virus, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. They also provide testing for COVID-19 in their California clinics, but strongly recommend patients go through the Coronavirus Assessment Tool.
We understand that these startups would not be able to help the world without being firstly found and supported by a private foundation, a government, or a society. That is because startups, no matter how disruptive and innovative their ideas are, always need some initial funds to start their development.
DIGIS vs Covid-19
We at DIGIS have always supported all activities aimed at increasing human healthcare awareness.
Healthcare, Medicine, and Life Sciences is one of our specialty domains and we have successfully completed multiple software development projects that contribute to improving the health of the population.
Being extremely concerned about Covid-19 and the world’s ability to cope with it and its consequences, DIGIS provides a Special Offer aimed at supporting innovative startups that work in healthcare, medicine, and life sciences.
Such startups, when awarding DIGIS with any sort of service contract, will guaranteedly get:
- 10% discount off the contract price
- Dedicated manager to support the project until the completion
- Additional benefits as may be needed,
Nothing can be more important than the health of our children, so DIGIS will continue to monitor the situation and do our best to help fight Covid-19. We will also do our best to empower others to help everyone, including us!
