EHealthpoint brings home to India prestigious USAID Grand Challenge award - By: Dolna the movement

August 5, 2011 (India, Mumbai) USAID, the Government of Norway, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, and The World Bank partnered to launch the global ‘Saving Lives at Birth: Grand Challenge award’.

This partnership leverages the collective resources to provide nearly $14 million for the grant program’s first round of funding. Over 5 years, the partners aim to invest at least $50 million in groundbreaking and sustainable projects with the potential to have a transformative effect on the lives of pregnant women and their babies in the hardest to reach corners of the world.

From more than 600 global submissions, 77 finalists travelled to Washington, D.C. to compete in the final stage of the competition. They displayed their ideas to the public in an open market place and establish connections with a community of innovators dedicated to a single cause: ensuring every mother delivers safely and every newborn has a healthy start to life. 19 innovators were declared winners.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined the Saving Lives at Birth global partners to congratulate the awardees.

"It is a great honour to be included among the winners of the Saving Lives at Birth Grand Challenge competition, as well as very stimulating both to hear Secretary Clinton and other distinguished speakers and to see all the innovation among the other winners and finalists, including many new tools that eHealthPoint can use on the ground." Said Al Hammond Co-Founder and Executive Chairman eHealthPoint.

Co-Founder and President, eHealthPoint Mr. Amit Jain added "We are very grateful for the distinguished individuals here in India and in USA who stood reference for us in this competition, and we very much look forward to the $250,000 in grant funds from this award, as they will accelerate our testing and introduction of new maternal/child health services for rural India."

HealthPoint Services’ builds rural clinics that provide safe drinking water, affordable telemedical video consultations by qualified doctors, a wide range of diagnostic tests, and a licensed pharmacy. HealthPoint Services has successfully conducted more than 11,000 diagnostic investigations, 25,000 medical consultations, 27,000 filled-in-prescriptions, and serves more than 1,00,000 people daily with safe drinking water.

The company has also created job opportunities across villages. It has helped villagers cut down on treatment costs borne due to water-related diseases and travel costs to urban centres for seeking healthcare. The social business enterprise incubated by Ashoka, the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs, is planning to expand this pioneering Primary healthcare model to other states in India and to few other countries in near future.

For more information, visit http://www.ehealthpoint.com or contact Amit Jain amit.jain@globalhealthpoints.com +91 9989698881; or Dr. Allen Hammond, al.hammond@globalhealthpoints.com, +1 301-996-3228.
To learn more about the Saving Lives at Birth program and the 19 innovators, visit http://www.savinglivesatbirth.net

By: Mithu Basu (Dol/EHP5811)
Posted: August 05, 2011 – 11amIST
Press contact: Dolna Communications, Mithu Basu: mithu.dolna@gmail.com, +91 9820414732

About the Author

Healthpoint Services, which was co-founded byAshoka Senior Entrepreneur Al Hammond and supported by Ashoka (a NextBillion Associate Partner), won the award for Emerging Ventures in the health/water/sanitation sector for 2011.

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