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Forty-three-year-old Raghu Bathina is a successful IT professional. He founded Internet security appliances provider, Ramp Networks, and software technologies firm, QuickTree, and sold them off to Nokia and Citrix respectively. He knows how stressful the profession is. He makes it a point to jog and play squash every day. One day, he hurt his back while playing squash and realisation dawned on him that the body become less durable with age.
His father, Dr Ravi Bathina understands the problem from a wider perspective. He knows IT professionals are more vulnerable to non-communicable diseases (or NCDs), which has emerged major killers. “NCDs accounted for 3.5 crore or 60 per cent of deaths globally. And 80 per cent of these occur in developing countries. Good news is that it is not expensive to prevent them. Simple lifestyle modifications would reduce the risk,” he said.
The father-son duo joined hands to develop an IT-based five-minute health risk assessment solution. It lets people answer a few queries on their weight, height, blood pressure and waist measurements, sitting right in their cubicles and submit it for evaluation through the web.
In a jiffy, the IT solution would extrapolate the data on a well-established US study and gives results. “We will put people in different risk profiles based on evaluation,” Mr Raghu Bathina told Business Line after showcasing the solution here on Friday. Dr Ravi of Care Hospitals and Dr B. Ramesh Babu of Medwin Hospitals said this solution was scientifically validated and based on international accepted studies.
Mr Raghu, however, has no plans to monetise or own IP (intellectual property) rights on the solution. He is willing to share this with corporates and others. “This would attract more people to take to tests as it doesn't involve paying visits to doctors and diagnostic centres,” he said.
Mr Raghu and his father joined doctors, venture capitalists and IT firms to form Happi (Health Awareness Promotion-Project India). They talked to the Confederation of Indian Industry, The Indus Entrepreneurs and ITsAP (IT industry association of Andhra Pradesh) to promote Happi. To begin with, it would do 3-5 pilots.
ADP, the US-based IT solutions and services company that is supporting Happi, will be among the first to join the initiative.
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