$10 Cellphones Bring Health Care to Developing World (VIDEO)

Every year, one million babies die on the day they're born. The team at Medic Mobile, helmed by Josh Nesbit is looking to change that. The non-profit tech company works with community health workers in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia to improve access to health care. Each of these community health workers typically works with 100 families, and they used to hand-deliver patient updates to doctors by foot. But by equipping these individuals with $10 cellphones, Medic Mobile helped to create a hub-and-spoke model of health care that's revolutionized the way millions of people get well.

"A billion people will never see a doctor in their lives, but 90% of the world's population is covered by mobile," Nesbit told Mashable.

The community health workers save time and energy by using Medic Mobile's SMS and SIM apps to communicate with doctors from remote locations. Earlier this year, the company publicly released Kujua, an open-source web app for messaging that also offers data visualizations for better decision-making. The deployment of Kujua — Swahili for "to know" — will help Medic Mobile's system scale in the developing world.

This year alone, Medic Mobile doubled its roster of remote health workers to 16,000, and the non-profit's programs will reach 7.5 million people by the end of 2013.

Watch the video above to hear how Medic Mobile illustrates Purpose in Progress. And if you have an old cellphone, you can donate it here.



(Source: mashable.com)