Investing in tech to help children and communities thrive | Takeda Stories
Investing in tech to help children and communities thrive
How our Global CSR Program helped empower diverse entrepreneurs to innovate health solutions.
Digital innovation can help improve child health. But here’s the challenge many countries face: Only 10% of private capital investment goes into emerging markets.1
Issues related to currency devaluation, consumer volume and the perception of heighted risk mean early-stage innovators face challenges in accessing funding to grow their reach and impact. As a result, many potentially valuable new technologies are never fully realized.
To address this issue, Takeda employees selected the UNICEF Venture Fund’s Investing in Innovation and Frontier Technology initiative as part of our 2019 Global CSR Program. The project aimed to finance early-stage, open-source technology to benefit children, providing flexible funding and mentorship for innovators in emerging economies. It focused on empowering startups and deploying digital public goods (open-source resources like software, data or standards, designed to address global challenges and benefit humanity) to improve health care delivery in underserved communities.
In 2024, the five-year project came to a close. Below is a snapshot of the significant impact it had alongside a glimpse at some of the technologies the initiative helped bring to life.
Impact in numbers
29
15
Resulting in ...
15,915,371
1,850,772
501,793
364,070
337,239
52,285
Health and technology at Takeda
“We harness the power of data and digital technology to tackle global health challenges. Our partnership with the UNICEF Venture Fund reinforces this commitment. It enabled us to support open-source innovations that drive sustainable solutions and create meaningful, lasting impact for vulnerable communities worldwide.”
Takako Ohyabu, Chief Global Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Officer, Takeda
Health innovation supported through the program
Putting specialist-level decision making into the hands of healthcare providers in Tanzania
In many parts of Tanzania, there are no medical specialists or pediatricians. And, with limited access to diagnostic equipment and resources in these communities, child mortality rates are high – especially among those under the age of five.3 Inspired Ideas’ Elsa Health Assistant is a clinical decision support platform that brings specialist-level decision making to all health care providers. Powered by artificial intelligence, data and expert knowledge, Elsa supports providers in identifying the cause of a patient’s condition, predicting medication adherence and providing actionable next steps based on national guidelines. 3
The tool’s AI models are built alongside medical experts, who help map causality between symptoms, risk factors, geographic location and time-related data with likely conditions. The result is evidence-based insights such as the likelihood of the patient having malaria and the safest course of action to ensure a positive outcome.
Since launch, the Elsa Health Assistant has supported clinical decisions for almost 200,000 patients – roughly 5,000 per month.
“We’re the only AI-powered clinical decision support tool deployed in primary health facilities in Tanzania – and we don’t take that lightly.”3 Ally Salim, founder, Inspired Ideas
Transforming rural health care access in Uruguay
Dronfies Labs developed a system to manage access to airspace for professional drone operations in Uruguay. Through real-time data sharing, the system enables drones to operate safely in shared airspace, opening new routes for deliveries of medical supplies, including during emergencies such as natural disasters. Dronfies Labs’ solution reduces the lengthy delivery times and carbon emissions typically associated with transportation of medical supplies to remote areas.
Due to the platform’s wide-ranging benefits, the Uruguayan Civil Aviation Authority approved it as the official way for requesting authorization for any commercial drone operation in the country. To date, it has helped over 6,000 people receive much-needed supplies.
“When disasters strike, delivery by air can be the only way to access a location, and drones are much cheaper than helicopters. In Uruguay, there are many communities prone to be disconnected in flood situations. That is where our solution can be extremely useful.”4 Dronfies Labs
Oky: Empowering girls around the world with reliable period education
In countries across the globe, millions of girls are unaware of or unprepared for menstruation before their first period. At the same time, menstruation-related stigma is widespread, with adolescents often feeling ashamed or unable to openly discuss the topic.2 UNICEF worked alongside several other global development teams to create Oky, a period tracking mobile app designed to be a trustworthy source of information to help inform and empower users.
More than 400 girls in Indonesia and Mongolia took part in the ideation and design phase. Their ideas helped to shape the app, determining the look and feel as well as the name Oky, which is a fun, made-up word. The result is a gamified, light-weight application that can run offline for users with limited internet access. It also allows girls who share phones – either with family or friends – to protect their data and privacy.
So far, Oky has empowered over 600,000 girls to increase their understanding of menstrual health and improve their digital literacy through interactions with digital technology.
- UNICEF Office of Innovation. https://www.unicef.org/innovation/growth-funding
- World Health Organization: Global report reveals major gaps in menstrual health and hygiene in schools. https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2024-global-report-reveals-major-gaps-in-menstrual-health-and-hygiene-in-schools
- UNICEF Venture Fund: Inspired Ideas: AI powered decision support platform for healthcare providers. https://www.unicefventurefund.org/story/inspired-ideas-ai-powered-decision-support-platform-healthcare-providers
- UNICEF Venture Fund: Healthcare Delivery: Dronfies pilots Uruguay's First Drone Delivery Network. https://www.unicefventurefund.org/story/healthcare-delivery-dronfies-pilots-uruguays-first-drone-delivery-network
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