COVID19 has left the world economy shaken and disturbed tremendously. The virus has been causing damage to the world in every way possible. Global bodies along with the governments have been taking drastic steps to contain the virus as much as possible.
Individuals have also been coming forth in order to contribute as much as they can from donating funds to helping the poor with food and essentials. These actions are not just to help the government but ultimately themselves and humanity.
However, there are a few business ventures that have also been fighting the virus in their own way. Forbes India has released the names of a few business ventures who are doing their best to help the people in these difficult times.
1. Qure.ai
Prashant Warrier, the CEO of Qure.ai, has suggested that a mobile van with an X-ray machine can go door-to-door to test patients. The qXR technology can detect an abnormality within seconds. If a person tests positive, a swab could be collected for the PCR [polymerise chain reaction] test, which is required for Covid-19 diagnosis. With this method, the doctor can better understand the extent to which the lungs have been affected. Consequently, the right combination of drugs can be prescribed.
2. Innaumation
Innaumation Medical Devices LLP Is a Bangalore, India based medical device start-up working on the area of voice restoration for threat cancer patients and has recently invented the AuM voice prosthesis.
The company has now created Laryngeal Bibs for its patients. Rao who is the co-founder of Innaamation has shared that these patients have a hole in their throat, which means they can’t use regular masks. The company has designed bibs that function like masks to ensure that patients can protect themselves during the coronavirus outbreak.
3. Asimov Robotics
In March, Jayakrishnan and his team deployed two robots in nearby offices in Kochi, for about 10 days to spread awareness about the disease and the precautions that could be taken. Jayakrishnan has said that the robot would play videos created by the World Health Organization (WHO), during lunch breaks, it would interact with humans and answer any questions that they had about the pandemic, using data and information provided by WHO.
Currently, the Karmi-bot is driven entirely by artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies have been equipped with a tray that can carry both food and medicines, a detachable UV-ray disinfectant box, and an automatic disinfectant sprayer for cleaning hands after eating food.
4. Docturnal
Docturnal Private Limited, established in April 2016, is a point of care screening and diagnostics provider of non-invasive and proactive detection of diseases.
Docturnal launched a mobile phone application, TimBre, which can detect patients with lung TB. The sound of an individual’s cough is recorded on a third-party microphone by a medical practitioner and processed in real-time to detect if the patient has TB.
With the quality and quantity of data that has been collected over the years, the team is confident of the application’s accuracy. It says the same technology can be used to detect if a person has Covid-19 or not, given that it is also a pulmonary disease.
The team is awaiting Covid-19 patient data from various hospitals and ICMR. Once the data is updated in the ML model, after a short trial with ICMR and the required approvals, Docturnal is confident of taking the platform to the market. The pricing will be around ₹100 per test.
5. Staqu Technologies
Staqu is working towards creating a research ecosystem to develop advanced artificial intelligence-powered technologies that can be used in solving impactful real-world problems.
Staqu has launched an AI-powered thermal camera to detect body temperatures at a range of 5 to 10 m. Staqu team explains that a thermal camera basically calculates the temperature of the whole environment where it is placed and gives you the pixel-wise temperature of each of the objects in the scene.
