01/07/14

SciDev.Net Podcast: Tech innovators make a difference and more

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Copyright: Jacob Silberberg / Panos

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This month’s podcast features two female innovators who are making a difference in the developing world.
 
First we meet Neeti Kailas, an award-winning Indian designer who is working to improve the early diagnosis of hearing impairment in newborn babies. Every year, almost 100,000 hearing impaired babies are born in India, but speech development can be safeguarded with early screening.
 
Then we pay a visit to Shikoh Gitau, a Kenya-based computer scientist and tech entrepreneur who tells us about Ummeli, a new mobile jobs and community network.
 
Correspondent Clare Kemp talks to Steve Wiggins, a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute,  about how diets are changing around the world and the resulting impact on food security and health.
 
To dig deeper into the topic of global health and its future challenges, Leszek Borysiewicz, former chief executive of the United Kingdom’s Medical Research Council, sheds light on the practical actions needed to improve health in the short term, and highlights the long-term strategies that may work for the developed and developing world.