Kiwi student on board with lifesaving bracelet

A Kiwi student is helping to develop a bracelet chip that could help immunise millions of Indian children against life-threatening diseases.

The digital chip, containing a child’s full immunisation record, was the winning project in the New Zealand India Sustainability Challenge for university students.

Education New Zealand chose six finalists from 90 entries, and assigned each one a New Zealand student for the final two weeks.

About 9.6 million Indian children under five years old are not vaccinated despite a fully funded programme.

VaxiBead developers Dhruv Suri and Saisri Akondi of Manipal Institute of Technology set out to address the gap, and Canterbury University student Nic Steyn was assigned to the team in November.

He spent two weeks in the Indian cities of Udupi and Delhi, helping his team-mates prepare a presentation for the Challenge finale.

The group visited health clinics, slums and orphanages to promote VaxiBead, which replaces paper documents.

Winning the challenge gave the project important exposure to potential funders and government agencies, Steyn said. The team had been given support to run a pilot in Udupi District, population 1.1 million.

Suri and Akondi also won a threeweek trip to New Zealand.

Steyn said being part of the VaxiBead team had given him a rare glimpse into a very different culture.

‘‘Within the first 24 hours we had visited a slum and were helping build solar panels for their roof.’’

He struggled to describe the level of poverty he saw, but said some things were particularly shocking.

Steyn, who plans to work in international finance as a business analyst, said the experience underscored his desire to be involved in similar humanitarian projects in future.