Program areas at Nexleaf Analytics
Vaccines: Remote temperature monitoring of cold chain equipment: Our vaccine program uses wireless technologies to monitor the temperature inside of refrigerators and cold storage facilities, which are used to store vaccines and other temperature-sensitive medications. The transportation, storage, and distribution infrastructure that keeps many vaccines and other temperature sensitive medications at controlled temperatures called the cold chain is unreliable in many developing countries. The last mile of the cold chain, which includes rural clinics and delivery by foot as a health worker travels from one village to the next, is particularly vulnerable, marked by unreliable power. If the cold chain is not maintained from the manufacturer to the location where vaccines are administered, the vaccines can become less potent or completely ineffective. (continued on Schedule O]
Air Pollution and Clean Cookstove Monitoring: Nexleaf develops a low-cost, wireless clean or improved cookstove sensor. This sensor monitors the amount of cooking performed on such cookstoves to help verify the amount of carbon emissions that can be saved by switching to cleaner burning cooking methods. These kinds of cleaner technologies are needed in areas such as rural India, where it is common for meals to be cooked over open fires. Using improved cookstoves to prepare meals can eliminate much of this pollution. However, the cost of owning such cookstoves is a hurdle that limits the number of people who use them. In order to address this issue, we have developed a cookstove monitor that is aimed at helping reduce the cost of owning a cookstove by creating a mechanism whereby families can earn money for their continued use of the cleaner burning technology.
Hope and Innovation - Exploring new applications of our technologies:Programs supported by the organization all utilize mobile sensing technology to monitor and develop data for various activities, environments, and/or communities. We regularly explore new applications of our technologies in underserved markets relevant to our mission, spending time with potential customers to understand their unmet needs. We then test minimum viable products to determine their technical feasibility and market acceptance before deciding whether to develop and scale them. One innovation we are currently incubating is the ability to remotely monitor several measures of electricity. Early findings are promising for a variety of potential applications, including but not limited to remotely monitoring medical equipment used in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU).