Simprints: transforming the way the world fights poverty

Updated Jul 10, 2020

Simprints: transforming the way the world fights poverty

http://www.simprints.com

Christine Kim

Simprints builds technology to radically increase transparency and effectiveness in global development, making sure that every vaccine, every dollar, every public good reaches the people who need them most.

The World Bank has recognized that biometric technology is a game-changer for fighting epidemics and critical for effective and efficient health systems in the face of an outbreak of a disease. Simprints develops biometric technology solutions to connect governments, health organizations, and health workers to quickly and accurately connect with patients. We focus on human-centered design a...

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Data

Schwab Foundation

Stage 5: Scaling

To date, we have reached >400,000 beneficiaries across 12 countries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with essential healthcare, finance, and education services using our existing contact-based fingerprint system.

Registered in United Kingdom

Focus Areas:

Health, Prevention & Vaccination, Technology and 8 MoreSEE ALL

Implemented In:

Tanzania, Bangladesh, Nepal and 3 MoreSEE ALL

Key Partners

Countries Implemented In

Customers

Employees

$11,600,000

Funds Raised to Date

Verified Funding

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Problem

In a health crisis like the COVID-19 outbreak, ensuring that vaccines and other lifesaving medicines are reaching their beneficiaries is critical. To stop a disease spreading, you need to diagnose people rapidly and accurately, and track others who they’ve contacted. But more than 1B people globally lack legal identification, and these people are less likely to be able to access health services, less likely to know their disease status, and, ultimately, more likely to pass the disease to others.

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Solution

Simprints's mission is to transform the way the world fights poverty. We build technology to radically increase transparency and effectiveness in global development, making sure that every vaccine, every dollar, every public good reaches the people who need them most. Simprints' technology ensures that health workers in the last mile are able to reach real patients, tracking cases over time and geography, and ensuring equitable delivery of vaccines and medical services in last mile settings.

Target Beneficiaries

Over 1 billion people globally lack access to legal identity documents and are unable to access government or development services. This problem disproportionately impacts the lives of people at the base of the pyramid, with women and girls often further affected. Simprints can allow anonymous access to services, improving uptake of treatment programs where there is a risk of stigma, such as TB and HIV, as well as being critical for the safety of women accessing gender-based violence services.

Competitive Advantage

Existing biometric technologies are largely tailored to developed-country context and unsuitable for the frontlines of global health. The hardware solutions are not rugged and primarily targeted for desktop use which requires a consistent supply of electricity. The software solutions are designed for smartphones and computers with high performance capacity, not the low-cost devices typically used. Simprints develops and implements hardware and software solutions for institutions and governments working on the front lines of health in the developing world. We endeavor to have modular systems that maintain interoperability and thus functionality for last mile projects. Before implementing our solution, we spend >700 hours co-creating with front line workers and our most recent solution achieving 228% higher accuracy than the next best technology available in low-resource settings.

Planned Goals and Milestones

We are developing a scalable, safe, and secure contactless biometric system to help tackle COVID-19 in low-income countries. Unlike existing tools that are hampered by significant racial, ethnic, and gender biases—e.g., misidentifying non-white females up to 100x more frequently than white males—and are unable to run offline or on low-cost phones used in last mile settings, Simprints has prototyped and tested multiple tools that address the unique challenges frontline health workers face.

	Funding Goal	1,000,000
	Projected Cumulative Lives Impacted	500,000

The Team Behind the Innovation

Dr. Toby Norman: CEO & Co-founder Toby has worked for >10 years on initiatives to improve global health and development through technology. He is a 2018 GLG Fellow, 2017 Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year, and 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 Entrepreneur. Alexandra Grigore: Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder She has a PhD in Nanoscience from the University of Cambridge. She is a 2015 Top 200 Movers & Shakers in BioTech, 2017 Women in Tech winner, and 2017 Top 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness.