AWS Announces Health Equity Initiative Hits One-Year Milestone, Distributes $14M
Sept. 21, 2022 -- This morning Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that it has awarded $14 million in cloud services and technical expertise to help nearly 90 organizations around the world, ranging from startups and nonprofits to large enterprises, to address health equity challenges through the Health Equity Initiative. Additionally, AWS also introduced a new pillar of the program today to improve global equity in access to diagnostics.
As non-communicable medical conditions account for 70 percent of deaths globally, with a disproportionate amount of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries, diagnostics is key in treating these conditions.
The Health Equity Initiative launched in September 2021 is a three-year, $40 million commitment to support organizations that are innovating in driving health equity around the world.
Example success stories to-date of organizations participating in the program include:
- Hyrax Biosciences is scaling its genomic sequencing technology to address diseases, including COVID-19, HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in order to better understand and track progress of the diseases in Africa.
- Hurone AI is democratizing access to high-quality cancer prevention and care through building AI-powered applications derived from data sources and algorithms from people of African descent to bridge the gaps of cancer care outcomes. (Dr. Kingsley Ndoh, founder and chief strategist, is available for interviews)
- eVisit is helping emergency personnel offer telehealth services, giving underserved populations access to the care they need without requiring an emergency visit to the hospital. (Juli Stover, chief strategy officer, is available for interviews.)
Health equity is receiving increased attention as new findings from the World Health Organization’s research on Social Determinants of Health noted a 19-year difference in life expectancy between developed countries and resource-constrained ones.
Source: Amazon Web Services
