Introduced an application that detects diseases through “selfie”

On Tuesday, an Indian life scientist unveiled at Startup de Santarém an app that uses “selfies” to identify potential diseases it wants to produce and sell, paired with smart clothing that allows the body to train to stay healthy.

Asim Gupta, founder of MI.BO, presented at Startup Santarém Tuesday two aspects of a project he has been developing in recent years that aims to enable people to live longer in a healthy way.

“Today our life is longer, but there is a gap between the time of life and the period in which we live in a healthy state. The gap is currently 9.2 years. we suffer a lot, and most of this suffering is completely unnecessary,” he told Luza.

The project, the first under the Startup Visa program (a program for the admission of foreign entrepreneurs who wish to develop an entrepreneurship and / or an innovative project in Portugal), to be installed in an incubator promoted by the Santarém (Nersant) Region Business Association. , was one of the “20 Most Exciting Products” created by “Startups” selected to be presented at the Web Summit last week in Lisbon.

In an interview with Lusa, Asim Gupta stated that after a dramatic episode in his life, it was the need to “enable people to live longer in a healthy way” that prompted him to create an application that, through photography, can detect whether a person is at risk of getting one of the diseases that are currently cause the death of 21 million people worldwide, such as heart attack, stroke or diabetes.

“The first thing to do is make a diagnosis. Today we have to take tests, go to the hospital so that the doctor can determine if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.,” he said. .

Knowing how a person’s health is, MI.BO (meaning mind and body in the “whole person” approach) proposes to provide a program to improve physical condition and well-being with an electrical stimulation system built into everyday clothes that trains the body during daily activities in according to the specific information of each person.

Asim Gupta stated that the investment in Startup Santarém, installed in the former Escola Prática de Cavalaria, has been working with Nersant since 2019, after visiting several cities in the country, eventually giving up on how they were obtained, as well as the peacefulness and proximity of the city to Lisbon .

In September, MO.BI signed a protocol with the Polytechnic Institute of Santarem, with whose schools of health, sports, technology and management it wants to continue developing the technology, which has reportedly already been tested on 35,000 people.

The project is currently in the approval phase, he said, and it will enter a “pilot” phase, when contacts will be established with companies and institutions that want to become partners to launch products on the market in 2023.

Among potential partners, he pointed out health care, municipalities, insurance companies, employers, emphasizing that “everyone is interested in people having better health.”

“If, for example, the mayor of Santarém wants to know about the health of his population, we can tell him about it in five days, we can tell what percentage of the population is at risk of a heart attack in the next five to ten days. years, what is the risk of developing diabetes. Also, public health can have access to this information and use it,” he said.

One way the company wants to commercialize is through an app downloaded on mobile phones to perform a monthly “health check” through an annual subscription of 12 euros, which can be purchased by individuals or by companies and legal entities. who provide them free of charge to workers, customers or communities, he added.