The Indian arm of International nonprofit health organisation Path on Tuesday joined hands with Tata Trusts, one of India’s oldest philanthropic organisations, to establish a centre at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi to help innovators develop cost-effective products that could be used for public health delivery.

Called Impact Lab, the centre being set up with the help of IIT researchers, will mentor people with innovative ideas to develop them into full-fledged medical devices and diagnostic products that can make healthcare accessible to the poor in the country.

“We have been trying to work with subject matter experts with solid domain expertises in diverse fields such as education, energy, health, sanitation and water to help develop accessible technologies which can make meaningful difference to people,” said Manoj Kumar of Tata Trusts.

Though he refused to divulge how much funding would go into the venture, Kumar said finances would not be a constraint as a lot of donors and philanthropic organisations are looking for opportunities to support such initiatives. “We want to make it a success,” he said.

Social entrepreneurship

“The idea is to create a network of social entrepreneurs who can use the facilities available to them at the IIT lab so that they can come out with products that can improve public health delivery in the country,” said Neeraj Jain, country director for Path in India.

“We would provide them with market access information and aid in product commercialisation and in scaling up production as and when they need,” Jain said.

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