Medical anthropology researchers meet health tech start-ups, KlinikEverywhere and EverMind
In December, researchers from the Department of Anthropology and Sociology met with Balasubramanian S, the Founder and Chief Executive of KlinikEverywhere, a health tech start-up based in Bangalore providing remote clinic services and Sarah Fraikue, the Founder and CEO of EverMind, a mental health tech start-up offering multilingual culturally sensitive video psychotherapy.
Dr Orkideh Behrouzan, Dr Fabio Gygi, and Abhishek Mohanty heard about how KlinikEverywhere has evolved since it was founded during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Balasubramanian S explained that KlinikEverywhere was founded to leverage technologies such as IoT and AI to provide patient-focused solutions that enabled affordable access to quality healthcare through its remote clinic services as well as kiosks for teleconsultation. Bala (as he likes to be known) also spoke of his own trajectory, both as an experienced technologist and a health tech entrepreneur. All the discussants acknowledged the need to recognise the social worlds of such technologies and deliberated as to what these might suggest for the future of healthcare.
In a separate meeting, Dr Orkideh Behrouzan and Abhishek Mohanty spoke with Sarah Fraikue, who discussed the evolution of the EverMind platform to its present avatar of providing mental health services for teams and remote workers in organisations with international and multicultural footprints. The discussion particularly focused on how EverMind enables therapists and individuals from across the world to find each other, based on the language, culture, and time zone they are most comfortable with. This is also a safe space, as the platform does not track who uses it. Cookies, as Sarah mentioned, are only for eating!
These interactions are part of the continuing series to help students better understand how society, health, and technology intersect.
Find out more about the MA in Medical Anthropology and Mental Health programme.
