Dimagi's India Country Director Selected as a Star in Global Health

Dimagi’s India Country Director, Stella Luk, has been selected as one of this year’s Stars in Global Health by Grand Challenges Canada. Funded by the Government of Canada, Grand Challenges Canada announced yesterday that they would be extending seed grants of $100,000 each to 83 inventive new ideas for addressing health problems in resource-poor countries.

Stella was selected after proposing a project to reimagine, design, develop, & test a novel, mobile phone-based tool to support deliveries in India using Dimagi’s technology. Stella and Dimagi’s team in will work to design and field test  a mobile application to support the management of labor based on the partograph, a paper labor management tool that has can halve prolonged labor, postpartum infection, and prevent obstructed labor.  The “Mobile Partograph” will help healthcare providers & supervisors of varying skill levels provide lifesaving delivery  using a much simpler, user-friendly mobile tool than the complex paper partograph.

The Grand Challenges Canada “Stars in Global Health” program seeks breakthrough and affordable innovations that could transform the way disease is treated in the developing world — innovations that may benefit the health of developed world citizens as well.Of the 83 grants announced today, 50 are given to innovators in 15 low- and middle-income nations worldwide and 33 to Canadian-originated projects, to be implemented in a total of 30 countries throughout the developing world.

Watch a video about the proposed project, featuring Stella!