Bihar Innovation Lab is hosting Health Public conclave on August 22, 2014 in partnership with Centre for Knowledge Societies (CKS) and Ananya Partnership. Bringing together thought leaders from public health, medicine, government (policy and implementation), developmental investment, media, design labs, start-ups and technology, the conclave aims to have a dialogue on how to best ensure the health and wellbeing of mothers and children. Rakesh Kuma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW); Girindre Beeharry, Director, India Country office at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF); Deepak Kumar, Prinicipal Secretary, Health, Government of Bihar; Sanjay Kumar, Secretary, Labour Resources Department and former ED of State Health Society – Bihar; Alkesh Wadhwani – Deputy Director, Integrated Delivery, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF); Sheena Chabbra, Chief, Health Systems Division, USAID are some of the luminaries who are expected to be a part of this platform and will actively brainstorm on several health innovation solution concepts that spark dialogue, collaborative solutioneering, and live partnership building among key discussants.
Over the past six weeks, a dedicated team of lab ethnographers, designers and public health experts have collected and analysed field data on the critical 1000-day window in maternal and child health; from the start of a woman’s pregnancy until her child’s second birthday, from different regions in Bihar. Data visualisations, series of critical intervention opportunity areas and several concept design solutions will reportedly serve as a base-plate for collaborative ideation and the live-creation of innovative partnerships on the day of the conclave.
Initial innovation directions range from the design of tangibles such as low-cost diagnostics and health profiling apps to screen high-risk mothers, tools for patient tailored care and counseling, home-based care aids for mothers, action tools for frontline health workers, body swaddles for kangaroo care and breast feeding, intelligent birthing beds for natural squatting postures, vaccine delivery kit, to the design of intangibles such as 1000 day care schemes, social nutrition networks, community health dashboards and service audits, evidence based decision making dashboards for public health managers, innovative incentive structures for front-line workers and many more.
Dr Aditya Dev Sood, Chairperson of the Bihar Innovation Lab says, “Innovation is about bringing newness into the world but this can only happen through intentional and organised socio-technical change. Innovation can bring millions of people out of hunger and poverty. It can improve the health sector radically. Unfortunately there are not enough people who aren’t even the part of innovation. They are yet to have the rich and granule experience of it. The Lab brings together discipline expertise from anthropology, behavioural sciences, design and systems thinking to work with citizen communities and create innovative and high impact solutions to intractable challenges of health, nutrition and agriculture.”
EH News Bureau
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