One in four people worldwide suffer from allergies - and many don’t even know what’s causing them. In this episode of the Tech For Good podcast, Romily Broad speaks with Santosh Nair, President of ImmunoDiagnostics at Thermo Fisher Scientific, about the cutting-edge science behind allergy testing. From life-changing IgE diagnostics to a secret allergen-harvesting farm in Sweden, this conversation reveals how early, accurate testing can transform lives and reduce the massive economic burden of allergies.

Learn how Thermo Fisher’s 50-year legacy is helping millions get answers — and why now is the time to get tested.

Visit: allergyinsider.com

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The ICONIC project, which stands for 'Intergenerational Codesign of Novel Technologies in Coastal Communities' -aimed to combat digital exclusion by developing novel new technology applications with disadvantaged communities, rather than for them.

An example of purposeful research in action, ICONIC began in 2022 and has just concluded with the creation of four unique prototype technologies developed hand-in-hand with the communities intended to use them.

In this episode of the Tech For Good podcast, host Romily Broad is joined by three research fellows from the Centre for Health Technology (CHT) at the University of Plymouth: Dr Rory Baxter, Oksana Hagen, and Dr Marius Varga. They describe an initiative built on years of research into the intersection of technology and public health. Their focus was on the community in its own area, rural southwest England - a perfect testbed as a region with high digital exclusion due to its rural geography and generally older, less affluent population.

The project engaged local users in developing four technologies: a VR experience of local heritage site Cotehele Hall, underwater telepresence for marine education, a conservation-focused social game, and an AI voice assistant for accessing local services. Researchers facilitated codesign workshops over the course of months, where participants shaped the development process, overcoming ther own technological hesitations while producing innovations with a much broader potential impact.

ICONIC’s results demonstrate that both its process and its outcomes offer rich benefits. Engaging excluded communities in technology development fosters digital literacy amongst participants, and simultaneously produces meaningful solutions tailored to local needs.

Now, the team is seeking new partners and funding to further develop the prototypes and expand their impact.

Find out more and get in touch: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/centre-for-health-technology/iconic

Read more: https://www.techforgood.net/

In 2021, serial tech entrepreneur Nikita Kuzmin decided it was time to give something back to the world that had given him so much.

His idea was a simple one: Build a charitable organisation and app that could connect an individual in genuine need of urgent help with someone elsewhere in the world willing to donate to provide it.

The obvious first target was in healthcare. Around the world, millions of people - especially children - go without simple treatments for serious but easily curable conditions for want relatively small amounts of money to pay for them.

What if an app existed where a patient's doctors could easily connect with someone in the world willing to pay for a course of antibiotics, anti-malarial drugs, or a simple procedure? Someone with the means and the will to pay the small amount to save a life?

As Nikita says in this episode of the Tech For Good podcast: "In this world, there should not be people who die because they don't have $300 in their pocket."

But what seemed like a simple idea soon became a Herculean effort to establish both trust and the banking facilities to enable it to take shape.

Four years later, with bases now established in the USA and Estonia and now operating in multiple counties in Africa and Asia, Helpster is on the verge of realising its promise. More than 700 children's lives have already been saved, and the goal is exponential.

"We are doing it all. Nobody is going to stop us."

Visit the Helpster website.

Get the Helpster app: IOS, Android

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