{"id":13504,"date":"2014-03-24T07:13:22","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T07:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13504"},"modified":"2014-03-24T07:13:22","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T07:13:22","slug":"philips-to-establish-research-innovation-hub-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13504","title":{"rendered":"Philips to establish Research & Innovation Hub in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wordmark\"<\/a>NAIROBI, Kenya,\u00a0March 21, 2014\/\u00a0—\u00a0<\/b>Royal\u00a0Philips\u00a0(AEX: PHI, NYSE: PHG) today announced the establishment of its Africa Innovation Hub in Nairobi, Kenya, which underlines the company\u2019s commitment to invest in Africa. The\u00a0Philips\u00a0Africa Innovation Hub will work both on the creation of new inventions, as well as bringing these inventions to the market.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Philips\u00a0Africa Innovation Hub will do application-focused scientific and user studies to address key challenges like improving access to lighting and affordable healthcare as well as developing innovations to meet the aspirational needs of the rising middle class in Africa.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Philips\u00a0Africa Innovation Hub will be located at the\u00a0Philips\u00a0East African Headquarters in Nairobi, where African talents and international researchers will operate on the concept of \u201copen innovation\u201d and will work in close collaboration with the R&D ecosystem of Kenya and Africa.\u00a0Philips\u00a0is in discussions with local organizations and Universities on R&D collaborations to co-create meaningful solutions for Africa.\u201cWe welcome the establishment of\u00a0Philips\u2019 Innovation Hub in Kenya;\u00a0Philips\u00a0is a globally recognized innovation powerhouse and their selection of Nairobi as the site to establish their African Innovation hub is a testament to the Kenyan government\u2019s commitment to nurture the drive for research and innovation in the region\u201d, says, Hon\u2019ble Adan Mohammed, Cabinet Secretary for Industrialization and Enterprise Development. \u201cWe lend our full support to the investment being made by\u00a0Philipsand look forward to the outcomes of their Africa-specific research and projects that can contribute to transforming society, business and government across the continent\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"JJ<\/a>
JJ van Dongen, Senior Vice President & CEO Philips Africa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

JJ van Dongen, Senior Vice President & CEO\u00a0Philips\u00a0Africa states: \u201cPhilips\u00a0is passionate to invent, apply technology and partner to help people succeed. Our ambition is to create impactful innovations that matter to people and address the key challenges that confront society. With Kenya as a leader in the continent in science and entrepreneurship as well as a hub of collaboration on technology and innovation, Nairobi, is the ideal location to establish\u00a0Philips\u2019 African research presence. We want to tap into the city\u2019s vibrant R&D eco-system and contribute to the process of co-creating new solutions, new business models and meaningful partnerships to provide innovations that make an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enhancing people\u2019s lives in Africa though meaningful innovations<\/b><\/p>\n

Some innovations that\u00a0Philips\u00a0was already working on have now become part of the Innovation Hub, hence, the\u00a0PhilipsAfrica Innovation Hub will kick-off with ventures that are under development as well as in the pilot phase; these include:<\/p>\n

Respiratory rate monitor to support pneumonia diagnosis:<\/b>\u00a0Pneumonia is the leading cause of death among children under the age of five, resulting in 1.1 million deaths worldwide annually (1). Of these, 99% of deaths occur in developing countries in low-resource settings, which typically entail rural areas with very limited or poor healthcare facilities or with low-skilled health workers. The current diagnostic tools in such settings are not easy to use, can easily distract the workers from an accurate conclusion, and thus lead to a poor diagnosis.<\/p>\n

The Innovation hub is working on the development and clinical testing of a robust and affordable Automated Respiratory Rate Monitor that aims to support the diagnosis of pneumonia among infants and children, using smart sensing technology on the body which is intended to be more accurate and reliable compared to manual processes being currently observed. This device will be specially designed for use by community health workers and nurses in rural areas. In Kenya, discussions are on with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) to further develop this project and co-create an effective solution tailored to circumstances in rural Africa.<\/p>\n

Community care services:<\/b>\u00a0The development and testing of a work-flow innovation designed to reduce the number of avoidable maternal and child deaths. The purpose of the workflow is to enable remote area health centers to diagnose, triage, treat, stabilize and (prepare for) transport expectant mothers that come in for a check-up and treatment.<\/p>\n

Smokeless cook stove:<\/b>\u00a0Philips\u00a0has designed and is manufacturing this innovative stove to improve the lives of those who rely on wood or biomass for their daily cooking. These specially designed stoves are extremely efficient and significantly reduce the use of wood as fuel. The cook stove can reduce smoke and carbon monoxide emissions by more than 90% compared to an open fire (2)\u00a0 thus reducing the health risks of indoor cooking. The contribution of the innovation hub is to create new go-to-market models for these stoves.<\/p>\n

Consumer solar solutions:<\/b>\u00a0Today an estimated 560 million Africans live without electricity;\u00a0Philips\u00a0is committed to improving access to lighting in Africa, for the majority of the population that lives in off-grid communities. The Innovation hub is designing and developing new consumer products using the combination of solar power and energy efficient LED technology. New go-to-market models are also being established to ensure these solutions become accessible to people that would not be able to afford them otherwise.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Philips\u00a0Africa Innovation Hub while headquartered in Kenya, will be responsible for pan-African research and projects and will have operations across Africa, linked to the\u00a0Philips\u00a0regional offices across the continent; the hub will be headed by Dr. Maarten van Herpen and will work in close collaboration with the\u00a0Philips\u00a0research labs in Bangalore, Shanghai and Eindhoven.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i>(1) Source: Unicef\u00a0http:\/\/www.unicef.org\/media\/media_70890.html<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i>(2) Reference source: Water boiling test version 4.2.2 done at accredited stove laboratory, Aprovecho Research Center (http:\/\/www.aprovecho.org\/lab\/index.php<\/a>), Oregon, USA.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NAIROBI, Kenya,\u00a0March 21, 2014\/\u00a0—\u00a0Royal\u00a0Philips\u00a0(AEX: PHI, NYSE: PHG) today announced the establishment of its Africa Innovation Hub in Nairobi, Kenya, which underlines the company\u2019s commitment to invest in Africa. The\u00a0Philips\u00a0Africa Innovation Hub will work both on the creation of new inventions, as well as bringing these inventions to the market. The\u00a0Philips\u00a0Africa Innovation Hub will do application-focused … Continue reading “Philips to establish Research & Innovation Hub in Africa”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[854,8689,8258,8688],"class_list":["post-13504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-africa","tag-jj-van-dongen","tag-philips","tag-technology-hub"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/philips-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13507,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13504\/revisions\/13507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}