IIT Hyderabad Announces Fellowship Program In Healthcare Entrepreneurship

IIT Hyderabad's Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CfHE) has called for applications for the Fifth Batch of its fully-paid Fellowship. The startups and Alumni of this Fellowship have developed solutions for major healthcare issues affecting India including COVID-19 pandemic besides infant mortality and other issues.

The program is open to candidates with medical, engineering and design degrees. It offers a monthly stipend of Rs. 50,000 during first year of training. The number of Fellowships which are being offered this year is 25.

Speaking about the unique aspects of the CfHE Fellowship, Prof. B.S. Murty, IIT Hyderabad Director, said, "A need was felt to usher in Innovation and incubation culture in academic institutions. IIT Hyderabad has always been progressive to address such needs. With a strong research in Biomedical Engineering, and lot of faculty from other departments engaged in interdisciplinary research in allied areas, it was only appropriate to identify healthcare as the theme for this endeavour."

The full-time in-residence Fellowship and training will be strongly hands-on. The Program follows a carefully structured and comprehensive package of curriculum.

The Fellows will undergo intense clinical immersions in private and public hospitals. They will also be taught bio-design process by IIT Hyderabad faculty and will have access to mentors, industry professionals and investors besides advisors.

Highlighting the unique aspects of this program, Prof. Renu John, Head, CfHE and Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, said, "The fellowship in healthcare Entrepreneurship at CfHE is one of its kind in the country and the diversity of domain expertise that is available with CfHE has been one of the critical strengths in driving this program successfully."

Institute has determined a three-stage structure for selection of candidates for the fellowship. The first stage will be an online test, follow by stage two which will be a hackathon, and the final stage will be a 3-day mock drill with a need analysis, problem statement, ideation, proof of concept and market analysis.

Further, Dr Ramkumar S., Chief Operating Officer, CfHE, said, "A healthcare hackathon would bring together the brightest engineering, clinical, product design and technology minds with a passion to innovation. We expect a lot more diversity and domain expertise in the program merging nontechnical aspects of user experience and business models in addressing critical cinilcal challenges."

CfHE and its incubatees have contributed to the sudden need for innovative products to address the COVID-19 crisis. The products they have developed include 'Jeevan Lite,' a low cost Ventilator, Nemocare's 'Raksha Plus' for geolocation, patient/suspect tracking and monitoring disease progression detection, 'Cowin20,' a wearable device for Covid detection, 'TraQaro,' a geofencing product and 'Usafe,' a low cost personal protection equipment.

CfHE, sponsored by two IIT Bombay alumni, is focused on bringing about universal healthcare. The Center's objective is to catalyze healthcare innovation to bring about affordable solutions to address healthcare needs of India.

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