Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G) has established the Indian Council of Medical Research-Department of Health Research (ICMR-DHR) Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Biomedical Device and Diagnostics Innovation and Commercialisation to cater for the technological needs of rural India with a focus on healthcare delivery to the last-mile population. 

The key outcomes envisaged from this centre include an array of frugal point-of-care diagnostic devices; a few pilot-scale digital health kiosks catering digital healthcare to the rural population; an array of new inventions and innovations targeting the societal needs of the country; and import substitution and development of Indian technologies for the healthcare problems related to India.

Elaborating on the functioning of this Centre, Prof. Dipankar Bandyopadhyay, Head, Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology, IIT Guwahati, said, “Cutting-edge scientific inventions are the foundation of all modern-day technologies, which helps in improving the quality of life of a human being in a significant way. However, the benefits of such inventions and innovations are yet to reach the rural population of India. In next few decades, especially keeping the post-pandemic scenario in the perspective, the focus of healthcare innovation would be to develop frugal technologies to cater the needs of the last mile population.”