Karnataka, Netherlands partner for healthcare projects

Karnataka, the Netherlands partner for Living Lab

The Netherlands and Karnataka government are looking at co-development of technology solutions in healthcare via Living Labs.

Interacting with DH on the sidelines of the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2018, the Netherlands Ambassador to India Marten Van Den Berg said his country is looking to partner with the state government to explore opportunities in the healthcare segment.

“The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), Taskforce for Applied Research (SIA) and Government of Karnataka had signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) during the visit of Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade Sigrid Kaag in May 2018 to set up Living Lab in Bengaluru,” he said.

Berg said the Netherlands wants to improve access to affordable healthcare via means of eHealth and medical devices.

“The Living Lab at Bengaluru will help in connecting ecosystem of government, industry, and academia to co-create innovative solutions for shared societal challenges,” he said. The Living Lab is a technology partnership and three pilot projects will be jointly selected for co-funding opportunities.

“The Netherlands government will part fund the initiative, which will be a seed funding in the range of €25,000-75,000,” said the ambassador.

The Dutch government’s Living Lab initiative is also present in other emerging economies such as China, Brazil, Indonesia. The Living Lab will take up projects for developing tools for health literacy application, diagnostic tools for urinary illness, to come up with biomarkers for mass screening of population at risk.

The Netherlands is also ready to join hands with Karnataka in the areas of information technology and cybersecurity.

The Dutch Ambassador also announced Orange Tulip Scholarships for Indian students. “We have 19 Dutch universities who will participate in the programme, offering around 55 scholarships in bachelors and master courses,” he said. As many as 2,021 Indian students went to the Netherlands for higher education in 2017 clocking 30% increase over 2016 in enrollments.