Several female-led B.C. businesses are at the forefront of tackling challenges created by COVID-19.
Careteam Technologies Inc. is leading a project that aims to deliver remote monitoring and virtual care to help seniors, those with underlying health conditions and other vulnerable patients get access to care from their homes and avoid hospitals during the pandemic.
Led by CEO Alexandra Greenhill, the company and its partners have received funding from B.C.’s Digital Technology Supercluster to support the project.
Curatio Networks Inc. has also received funding from the supercluster’s $60 million investment to fight COVID-19.
Curatio’s Stronger Together project is being developed in collaboration with a number of partner organizations. The platform is designed to provide people navigating health challenges with disease management, tele-health support and advanced patient monitoring.
“All of that’s really gone missing during COVID and left those that are vulnerable and isolated even more isolated,” explained Lynda Brown-Ganzert, founder and CEO of Curatio. “We haven’t seen a solution like this in market that addresses everything from prevention and awareness, through to disease management, through to advanced, real-time patient monitoring.”
The project’s first patients are expected to be enrolled in the program later this month. Within the first year, Stronger Together is aiming to support 25,000 patients and families per week.
“We’re very eager to roll this out across Canada, but there’s also a huge opportunity to share this with the world, especially as we try to bridge that health gap or health divide between patients that have these types of supports and patients that don’t,” Brown-Ganzert said.
For the time being, the project is focusing on supporting seniors, those managing chronic conditions, outpatients, people with disabilities and working parents.
Its budget is a little under $1.9 million and is supported by $1.4 million from the Digital Technology Supercluster.
“Since inception, one of the supercluster’s greatest strengths is its ability to foster collaboration with all in the tech industry. We have a strong contingent of female-led companies in our membership because we know that the more diversity we have amongst us, the bolder and stronger digital innovation in Canada will be,” Digital Technology Supercluster CEO Sue Paish said in a statement to BIV.
When it comes to diversity, Brown-Ganzert said it is really important to be representative of the world when creating a product or solution for the world.
“I’ve always tried to build really diverse teams of genders, ages, cultures, perspectives because there is a bias to our design. There’s a bias to technology. And the more that we can diversify our teams, the more the end product will appeal and resonate with a global audience.”
