Source: UN Foundation/David Isaak

This morning at the mHealth Summit in Washington DC, the mHealth Alliance announced a two-year $1 million aggregate donation from HP to help further the Alliance's mission enable innovations that deliver quality health at the furthest reaches of wireless networks and mobile devices. The investment also makes HP a Founding Partner in the mHealth Alliance.

UPDATE: On Tuesday The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Norad, announced its own $1 million grant to the mHealth Alliance to help support its Maternal mHealth Initiative. On Wednesday, The Rockefeller Foundation announced its $1 million grant to the mHealth Alliance to support the organizations activities around leveraging mobile technologies to improve health in low and middle income countries. That marks three days in a row of $1 million grant announcements for the mHealth Alliance at the 3-day mHealth Summit it co-produced in Washington DC this week.

“HP’s financial, technical and project support to mHealth Alliance initiatives significantly expands our ability to catalyze the partnerships, solutions, and sustainable deployments of mobile technology that can enable healthier lives for all, especially in the developing world," David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance stated in a press release.

HP's funding will support the Alliance's core initiatives including the recently launched Health UnBound (HUB) online community, which aims to facilitate global knowledge sharing and collaboration among global health and mHealth workers. The funding will also support the mHealth Alliance's Maternal mHealth Initiative.

“We feel a strong obligation to global health from both a business and social impact perspective and are committed to helping to improve lives and change the healthcare equation for people around the world,” Gabi Zedlmayer, vice president of Global Social Innovation, HP, stated in the release.

While HP is now a founding member of the mHealth Alliance, the organization has existed for nearly two years. In February 2009 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, The UN Foundation, Vodafone Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation co-founded the mHealth Alliance. PEPFAR and the GSM Association were announced as founding partners since then.

“We wanted to get together [to form the mHealth Alliance] because we felt that mHealth was really on the tipping point” Claire Thwaites, head of the Vodafone Foundation and United Nations Foundation partnership told MobiHealthNews in February 2009. “There is a huge amount of programs going on around the world in pilot phases. We wanted to be able to share what we were doing and see what synergies there were. We made a commitment then to form a global mHealth Alliance.”

"Getting a rational eHealth system with a sophisticated mHealth system extending it into the community, is certainly where we are trying to go," David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance told MobiHealthNews September 2009 when he took the helm of the organization. "We certainly don’t have either in this country. Even if we do find a good model, it’s not clear to me that we would import it back into this country. What could happen though is a whole bunch of consumer-based health services that were one step removed from the core health system in the developed market could be a result of success in the developing markets. The industrial barriers to interoperability in the U.S. — and I don’t know about Europe but I suspect the same thing — are so powerful that even a whole bunch of good examples from Africa and Asia is not going to overcome the vested economic interests in the United States."

More on the mHealth Alliance - HP deal below:

mHEALTH ALLIANCE TO RECEIVE $1 MILLION FROM HP

TO IMPROVE HEALTH THROUGH MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

mHealth Alliance Board welcomes HP as Founding Partner

Washington, DC (November 8, 2010) – The mHealth Alliance today announced a two-year, $1 million aggregate donation from HP to help improve health care and health systems around the globe using mobile technology. The announcement was made at the opening of the mHealth Summit, a three-day event bringing together leaders from the global health and technology communities to explore ways mobile technology can increase the access, quality and efficiency of healthcare to communities in the U.S. and abroad.

“HP’s ground-breaking commitment demonstrates the rising importance of mobile technology in improving health, and the leadership of the information and communication technology industries to improve lives around the globe,” said David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance. “HP’s financial, technical and project support to mHealth Alliance initiatives significantly expands our ability to catalyze the partnerships, solutions, and sustainable deployments of mobile technology that can enable healthier lives for all, especially in the developing world.”

HP funding will support the core activities of the mHealth Alliance, including the Health UnBound (HUB) online community that facilitates global knowledge-sharing and collaborative solution development. HP’s support also will help the mHA-led Maternal mHealth Initiative.

“As the world’s largest technology company, HP is pleased to bring its strong history of innovation and technical expertise to our relationship with the mHealth Alliance,” said Gabi Zedlmayer, vice president of Global Social Innovation, HP. “We feel a strong obligation to global health from both a business and social impact perspective and are committed to helping to improve lives and change the healthcare equation for people around the world.”

The 2010 mHealth Summit, the largest event of its kind, is bringing together leaders at the forefront of the policy, research, business and development communities, including Bill Gates, Aneesh Chopra, Ted Turner and Judith Rodin, to advance the discussion around ways mobile technology can increase the access, efficiency and effectiveness of health systems in both the developing and developed worlds. The mHealth Summit partners are the Foundation for the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the mHealth Alliance, and NIH.

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About the mHealth Alliance

The mHealth Alliance (mHA) mobilizes innovation to deliver quality health at the furthest reaches of wireless networks and mobile devices. Working with diverse partners, the mHA advances mHealth through research, advocacy, and support for the development of interoperable solutions and sustainable deployment models. The mHA sponsors innovation challenges and conferences, leads cross-sector mHealth initiatives, and hosts HUB (Health UnBound), a global online community for resource sharing and collaborative solution generation.

Founding partners include the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation, PEPFAR, the GSM Association, and HP. More information is available at: www.mHealthAlliance.org.

About the 2010 mHealth Summit

The 2010 mHealth Summit is organized by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in partnership with the mHealth Alliance and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The event will take place November 8-10 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Event Highlights:

· Network with over 2,000 professionals from the U.S and 38+ countries, and gain unparalleled access to the biggest names in the health, policy and the mobile ecosystem

· Confirmed keynote speakers: Bill Gates, Co-Chair and Trustee, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Francis S. Collins, Ph.D., Director, National Institutes of Health; Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); Ted Turner, Chairman, United Nations Foundation; Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer; Dr. Judith Rodin, President, The Rockefeller Foundation; and Dr. Julio Frenk, Dean of Faculty, Harvard School of Public Health and former Minister of Health, Mexico.

A conference program that features seven Super Sessions on critical issues in mHealth that include topics such as Optimizing Privacy and Data Security, Regulatory and Policy Perspectives, Lessons Learned Around the Globe, Comparative Effectiveness Research and mHealth, and more. Six conference tracks and side sessions explore topics such as Economics and mFinance, the use of mobile technologies to improve Maternal and Child Health, Health Behavior & Mobile Technology, and mHealth and Emergency Response.

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