Search giant funds global health threats and other causes

Google executives today announced the areas where it will focus its charitable giving over the next five to 10 years.

The initiatives include $26 million in funds to several institutions including a think tank in India, Clark University and a Pasadena-based company specializing in solar thermal power and five other organizations and corporations.

The Pasadena firm eSolar received $10 million, the largest portion of the money.

“e-Solar’s technology has great potential to produce utility-scale power cheaper than coal,” according to the prepared statement released Thursday by Google.org, the search engine’s philanthropic arm.

Five million dollars is going to a group called InSTEDD, which aims to improve early detection and response capabilities for global health threats.

It creates technology for governments and others to respond and prepare for global health emergencies.

Some of the other beneficiaries include:

-$4.7 million to TechnoServe, which will in part support entrepreneurs in Ghana and Tanzania.

-$2.5 million to Global Health and Security Initiative, which prevents, detects and responds to biological threats.

-$2 million to Pratham, a non-governmental organization in India for the creation of an independent institute to conduct a nationwide annual status of education report.

-$765,000 to Bangalore-based analysis group Centre for Budget and Policy Studies, designed to help local governments facilitate better local planning in India.

US microchip maker Intel is developing a technology to allow remote monitoring of a person’s health through signals from a hand-held device, the company said on Wednesday.

Intel’s Indian and US researchers have built a prototype which would alert a person carrying the wireless device, and doctors monitoring the person’s health, to any impending medical emergency, said chief technology officer Justin Rattner.

“We’re now seeing numerous new areas of application, such as education, health and entertainment, which can be used to transform people’s lives,” Rattner said.

“Technology like this will help us live better and longer,” he told a news conference in the southern city of Bangalore.

The Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker’s research facility in Bangalore is playing a leading role in development of the system.

Mobile health monitoring would cut costs and give access to preventive healthcare to under-served populations and rural communities, Rattner said.

Bangalore — known as India’s Silicon valley — is one of Intel’s 15 global research locations. The firm employs 3,000 people in the country, where it has invested more than one billion dollars.

The Bangalore facility is Intel’s largest non-manufacturing site outside the United States.

Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, and other international companies have set up research facilities in India to take advantage of plentiful engineering and scientific talent to develop products and services.

Last year, the healthcare unit of General Electric unveiled a portable, battery-operated electrocardiograph that monitors heart functions and can be understood even by physicians who are not specialists in the field.

The product will enable physicians to treat patients, particularly in rural areas, where two-thirds of India’s 1.1 billion population lives but lacks access to good medical facilities. Source: afp.google.com