KIIT-TBI, the technology business incubator of the KIIT-Deemed-to-be-University, along with Academic Health Science Network, Yorkshire and Humber and Bhubaneswar City Knowledge Innovation Cluster Foundation (BCKIC) has been organising a three-day UK-India HealthTech Bootcamp with top 25 start-ups from the pan-Indian digital healthcare sector, to navigate and scale their healthtech business to the UK and the world.
These three days of extensive bootcamp was run by the delegation from Yorkshire & Humber AHSN team Dr Neville Young, Mr Tim East, Mr Tom Hutchinson and Ms Dace Dimza-Jones and British High Commission India team, Ms Leena Paul, Mr Deep Narayan, Mr Abhishek Jha & Mr Sandip Chaudhuri.
On the second day of the event, Science and Technology Minister Government Odisha, Ashok Chandra Panda, hoped that with the post-COVID experience, the focus had already been shifted to the technology-enabled health-care delivery sector with emphasis on genomics and bio-engineering-led early and preventive interventions. However, citing a very important part of the current urban living due to nuclear families and isolated lives, the Minister called upon the participating start-ups to do artificial intelligence (AI) and other IT-based tool-enabled work to help the senior citizens suffering from Dementia and Alzheimer’s types of neurological disorders.
The COVID management steps taken by the Odisha Government, Social Security Schemes for the elderly during the pandemic, BSKY benefits and lauded the role of KIMS Hospital, a constituent of KIIT-DU, as a leading healthcare hub to come to the rescue of the people of Odisha, Mr. Panda added.
Acting British Deputy High Commissioner Peter Cook, in his speech, appreciated the enthusiasm of 150 applications for the bootcamp and wished that in near future the platform would enable the healthtech ventures to get to work in the markets of UK, US, Latin American, EU and other world centers.
Narrating the role of AI, IT-tools, genomics and biotech research in having an e-diagnostics and e-consultation frameworks to help the patients, especially in remote and rural pockets in future, Cook said “predictability in the healthcare delivery will definitely have an edge over others in near future.’’ Mr Peter Cook also hoped that this unique event through KIIT-TBI and BCKIC will also help the academic community in the health sector and also National Health Service (NHS) and UK health ecosystem.
CEO KIIT-TBI and Chairman- BCKIC Dr Mrutyunjay Suar said “the extensive course during the healthtech bootcamp would provide the start-ups an update on the UK’s healthcare ecosystem and market, access to subject matter experts and the opportunity to engage directly with NHS stakeholders.’’ KIIT-TBI has successfully incubated 380 startups and created more than 5,000 job opportunities in various sectors with innovative ideas and solutions. Besides healthtech, it is also contributing in the sectors like agriculture, IT, engineering, core healthcare, environment, wastewater treatment, water quality and many others, he stated.
In the concluding session, Mr Shankar N Ram, Chairman, TiE Global provided the perspective of TiE chapters in supporting startups including women entrepreneurs. He praised the role of KIIT TBI in establishing and amplifying the startup ecosystem in the Country and extended all support from TiE Global to scale it up.