An Indian engineer whose low-cost neonatal\nbreathing device has saved the lives of new-born babies across small towns of\nIndia, has won the 2019 Commonwealth Secretary-General’s Innovation for\nSustainable Development Award in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nitesh Kumar Jangir, who created Saans as a\nbreathing support device to tackle avoidable deaths of premature babies from\nrespiratory distress syndrome due to a lack of immediate access to complex\nmedical equipment, received his award in the ‘People’ category alongside 14\nother innovators from across the 53 member-countries of the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Our mission is to try and ensure that babies\ndon’t lose their lives due to the lack of access to a piece of\ntechnology,” said Jangir, who was presented the award at a ceremony in\nLondon last week by Prince Harry \u0096 the Youth Ambassador of the Commonwealth,\nand Commonwealth Secretary-General Baroness Patricia Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In countries like India, with erratic\nelectricity supply and limited resources at public hospitals, this neonatal\nbreathing support equipment can be used without any complex training. So,\nanyone, anywhere can use this device and deliver crucial support to premature\nbabies,” he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bangalore-based electronics engineer is the\nco-founder of Coeo Labs, a medical device company with a vision to prevent\npreventable deaths in the field of emergency and critical care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saans, which has been in circulation for the past\nthree months across district hospitals of India that lack neonatal ICU\nfacilities as well as at medical colleges, has been in development for four\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is the world’s first neonatal Continuous\nPositive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device that can be powered in multiple ways \u0096\nthrough direct source electricity, including a vehicle’s electrical supply, a\nrechargeable battery, compressed gas, or even manual air pumping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“While this device is low-cost, at least three\ntimes cheaper than any other such machine, we had to ensure that it was of high\nquality. This award will go a long way in upscaling this device across the\nCommonwealth countries, for use in similar conditions in regions like\nAfrica,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each of the 15 winners of the inaugural\nCommonwealth Innovation Awards receive a trophy, a certificate and 2,000 pounds\nin prize money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The response from every part of the\nCommonwealth has been phenomenal,” said Abhik Sen, Head of Innovation and\nPartnerships at the Commonwealth Secretariat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“By showcasing the contribution their\ninnovations are making towards building a better world, these awards will help\nour hitherto unsung heroes win that crucial next round of support, mentoring\nand investment they need to scale up and fulfil their dreams. Equally, these\nawards are intended to inspire the incredibly youthful population of\nCommonwealth countries to dream big and believe that no problem is too big to\nsolve through innovation,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The awards are divided along five thematic\ncategories \u0096 improving the lives of People; boosting prosperity; protecting the\nplanet, promoting peace; and building partnerships for development in the\nCommonwealth.\n\nThe\nselection process was based on the impact or potential of the innovations to\nadvance one or more of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in Commonwealth\ncountries and some of the other winners came from countries in the Caribbean\nand Africa and from Australia and Canada.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An Indian engineer whose low-cost neonatal breathing device has saved the lives of new-born babies across small towns of India, has won the 2019 Commonwealth Secretary-General’s Innovation for Sustainable Development Award in London. Nitesh Kumar Jangir, who created Saans as a breathing support device to tackle avoidable deaths of premature babies from respiratory distress syndrome […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":3018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[92],"class_list":["post-3017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles","tag-awards-prizes-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3019,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3017\/revisions\/3019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}