Life of a Social Entrepreneur – Ashoka Fellow Hilmi Quraishi in Geneva

Above: Freedom HIV/AIDS Booth at eHealth Pavillion during the ITU Telecom World 2009 in Geneva.

“Donor funding is not viable to create a successful e-Health model. It can only be based on a sustainable business model”.--Ashoka Fellow Hilmi Quraishi.

Ashoka Fellow Hilmi Quraishi, co-founder of ZMQ, was invited by the World Health Organization to speak at the Connected Health Forum during the conference, and also exhibit the award winning and pioneering project - Freedom HIV/AIDS, which combats HIV/AIDS in Asia and Africa using mobile phones and mobile technology under the best e-Health practices from around the world.

Hilmi speaking at the Forum “Connected Health: Innovative business models and clinical practices” during the ITU Telecom World 2009. ITU Telecom World is a crucial event for global telecommunication and information communication technology (ICT) sector, which is organized by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and is held every 3 years. This year, the conference was held in Geneva from 5-9 October which attracted stakeholders from across the industry, global telecommunication and ICT platform.

Hilmi with Dr. Hamaoud Toure, Secretary-General ITU at the reception. Both, Hilmi and Dr. Toure are pass outs of Moscow State University. They spoke in Russian with each other.Telecom WORLD 2009 incorporated thematic elements to highlight the reach and role of telecommunications and ICT in areas of societal change such as the digital divide, health, climate change, and disaster relief. With its focus on development opportunities, the event brings together corporate social responsibility and displays cases of best practices around the world.

Hilmi with partners from East Africa at the Freedom HIV/AIDS booth during the exhibition at ITU Telecom World 2009 in Geneva. Freedom HIV/AIDS project has been one of the largest social initiative to combat HIV/AIDS using technology. The project exploits the reach of mobile networks in the remote and media dark areas to provide innovative health communication and health management tools & services in low-resource settings through affordable mobile phones. The project was launched in India in 2005 and later was replicated in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) with told and applications in the local languages – Kiswahili and Shen. Subsequently, many ICT tools like training programs, monitoring & evaluation programs, mobile/internet based edutainment games, and learning solutions were developed. The second phase of Freedom HIV/AIDS focused on health management through a mobile based application, mCST- mobile Care Support & Treatment, to track the health of people living with HIV/AIDS. The project has been now scaled to combat other health concerns like maternal health, child survival and reproductive health.  

This post contributed by ZMQ. ZMQ is a Technology for Development (T4D) organization which develops technology based tools, applications and solution on variety of social issue on a viable and self-sustainable business model to empower the communities.