On Wednesday, during our visit to Ambulatórios Médicos Especialidades (AME), we met with Diego Lencione and two of his colleagues. Diego is the founder of Phelcom, a start-up company in São Carlos. His company is currently creating a low-cost, portable retina fundus camera that can easily be taken on mobile clinic visits or to the homes of patients that are unable to come to the hospital for an eye exam. After this project, they hope to create a portable retina fundus camera that can take a picture of the retina without the use of eye drops to dilate the pupil. On a broader level, they would like to utilize the same baseline software for many other uses. For example, they may be able to use the same software to take pictures of skin conditions to identify melanoma, a type of skin cancer. This idea can be the source for many more products. To say the least, I am beyond excited to see all that Phelcom, and companies like Phelcom, work on in the future. The work they do will positively impact the healthcare industry.

Upon hearing that we were from Rice University, Diego said, “Do you know Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum?” He then proceeded to talk about how she had visited University of Sao Paulo about eight years ago and had given a moving speech about the work that was being done to provide low-cost technologies in Malawi – particularly to reduce neonatal mortality rate. He stated that hearing her speak was extremely inspiring. I was amazed at how much he remembered. Dr. Richards-Kortum’s vision and her hard work have continued to inspire individuals for years.

In addition, we had the opportunity to show him and his colleagues the Rice360 projects we were working on. They were absolutely fascinated at the simplicity of these projects. Diego stated that he could see Dr. Richard-Kortum’s vision in all of these projects – the vision and mission to provide affordable, simple, effective technologies to low-resource settings.