The Koita Foundation
2021 Update
2021 was a tough year for a lot of us, given the disastrous impact of the Covid pandemic across India. The pandemic also highlighted the need for enhanced healthcare infrastructure and information systems. Many of our NGO partners played a key role in supporting the highly stretched government machinery dealing with the pandemic.
At Koita Foundation, this past year has been a significant one as we scaled our efforts in Digital Health. Adoption of Digital Health in India is a key area of focus for our foundation. One of the highlights of the year was the partnership with IIT Bombay to establish the Koita Centre for Digital Health. We also grew our digital transformation work for NGOs working in education, livelihood and healthcare. These NGOs were able to leverage this transformation to better support their beneficiaries during the pandemic, which was very gratifying.
Rekha Koita
Director Koita Foundation
Koita Centre for Digital Health (KCDH) at IIT Bombay
Koita Foundation has partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), India’s #1 technical and research university, to establish the Koita Centre for Digital Health (KCDH) with the objective of supporting a robust ecosystem for digital health in India. KCDH offers academic, research and industry programs in Digital Health. Learn more about KCDH.
KCDH is partnering with leading hospital systems, healthcare research and academic organizations which have strong capabilities in different branches of medicine and healthcare.
KCDH has established a world-class advisory board consisting of experienced healthcare professionals, academicians, healthcare technology and industry veterans both in India and overseas. Learn more about KCDH Advisory Board.
KCDH has successfully launched an Inter-Disciplinary Dual Degree Program (IDDDP) and a Minor Program in Healthcare Informatics in July 2021. It will launch Masters and PhD programs in Healthcare Informatics by August 2022.
KCDH key focus areas include Healthcare Applications, Healthcare Data Management, Healthcare Analytics and AI, /ML, Consumer Health and Telemedicine, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Population Health and Public Health Policy. The centre has established joint research projects in these areas where IITB/KCDH faculty members are collaborating with clinical partners.
KCDH has recently partnered with National Health Authority (NHA) for training and capacity building programs for state healthcare officers across India to drive rollout of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) platform.
Foundation for Mother and Child Health India (FMCH)
FMCH (fmch-india.org) works to improve the lives of mothers and children in local communities by providing programs focused on health, nutrition, education, and sustainable skills training. Last year, we worked very closely with FMCH to transform their beneficiary engagement process and built a comprehensive decision tree platform - NuTree - for ensuring higher consistency and quality of care across field officers. This platform was scaled in 2021, to support field officers across 65 communities supporting over 39,000 beneficiaries - including providing remote support during the pandemic.
To enable better visibility, monitoring and create a data-driven culture across all levels, we developed Microsoft PowerBI executive dashboards for FMCH which are being used across the organization. The dashboards also provide reporting to donors and have enabled decentralization of operations.
FMCH has specialized programs for high-risk cases, especially severely malnourished children. NuTree was enhanced for children with Moderate and Severe Acute Malnutrition (MAM/SAM). It was also extended for field officer scheduling to better plan the field visits on a daily basis, thereby increasing their productivity.
NuTree is available in multiple languages, for larger adoption. FMCH has rolled out NuTree to partners across Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Vipla Foundation
Vipla Foundation ( viplafoundation.org/) runs and supports over 250 government and community preschools (Balwadis), including teacher training and building capacity within the community.
In order to improve the quality of schools, Vipla Foundation and teachers need to better track student enrollment, student performance and nutrition across the Balwadi network. Koita Foundation worked with Vipla Foundation to assess Balwadi activities and identify opportunities for leveraging technology. Subsequently, we developed two mobile apps for teachers and mentors to manage the Balwadis. These apps are currently being used across 20+ Balwadis for around 600 students.
· Vipla Teacher app allows the Balwadi teachers to track students including daily attendance and weekly evaluations, and share report cards with parents
· Vipla Mentor app enables mentors to track Balwadi activities – student performance, teacher performance, teacher training and parent-children school events
Vipla Teacher and Mentor apps have increased the operational efficiency of the teachers - especially data capturing, reviewing and tracking student performance. The apps are enabling teachers to better engage with students and parents - especially in pandemic times.
In the upcoming year, these apps will be rolled out to 50 Balwadis managed by Vipla Foundation and 200 Balwadis supported by Vipla Foundation.
Masoom
Masoom (masoomeducation.org/) runs 85 night schools across Maharashtra and Gujarat for young adults who have dropped out of the schools previously. In 2020, we worked closely with the Masoom team, to develop the Drishti platform for end-to-end management of schools and student performance. Drishti allowed teachers and school leaders to track and manage attendance and student performance, education material and food distribution.
This year the Drishti platform was rolled out across all 85 night schools impacting over 15,000 students. The platform has helped the Masoom team better monitor and control the program and increase operational efficiencies across all levels.
We have developed a Reporting module for tracking key performance indicators across all schools. The data from Drishti is used to populate real-time dashboards and track performance vs targets across organization and individual schools. This provides end-to-end transparency and has enhanced school performance - especially during Covid pandemic.
Koita Foundation is also collaborating with Masoom to develop tools to automate training and placement programs for graduating students of Masoom.
Key Initiatives Underway
Concern India (concernindiafoundation.org/)
Concern India Foundation provides financial and non-financial support to NGOs working in the areas of education, health, and community development. In addition to funding, it helps NGOs in capacity building, systems and planning. Over the past 30 years, Concern India has strengthened and supported over 1,000 NGO partners across the country. Koita Foundation is working with Concern India to refine its engagement with NGOs and deploy a strong project management platform for NGO projects and provide operational and funding transparency across the ecosystem.
Lend-a-Hand India (LAHI) (lendahandindia.org/)
LAHI prepares youth for employment and entrepreneurship opportunities by working at the intersection of education and livelihood. It partners with the government and government-aided schools to introduce vocational education as a core component of the school curriculum at secondary and higher secondary education levels (Grade 9-12 and students Aged 14 to 18). Currently, LAHI supports over 10,000 schools covering over 1 million students. Koita Foundation is supporting LAHI in building the Pathways platform for end-to-end management and evaluation of student internship programs.
Plans for 2022 & Beyond
We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all those who have been part of our journey – our NGOs, our technology partners (incl. Designscape and Synergy Connect) and well-wishers. We could not have done this without all their help and support!
As we get into 2022, we will continue to support KCDH and other digital health initiatives in India - which will have a very significant impact on cost, quality and access of healthcare services. We are working closely with healthcare organizations at the national and regional level to support these initiatives.
We are also scaling our ability to support NGOs in their digital transformation journey. Over the past few years, it has been heartening to see how digital transformation has helped our NGOs to redefine their processes, enhance beneficiary engagement, improve efficiencies, and use more data and analytics. Further, these NGOs are able to provide a stronger value proposition to their donors and scale their fund-raising efforts.
Wishing you and your families a great 2022.
KOITA FOUNDATION
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