Another challenge that India faces is providing quality, affordable healthcare. The Healthcare Technology Innovation Center (HTIC) at the Research Park is a joint venture between IIT-M and the DBT, Government of India. Since its creation in 2011, HTIC has brought together numerous medical institutions, industries and government agencies to collaborate and develop affordable healthcare technologies. It is a hotbed of interdisciplinary research and innovation, and offers opportunities to undergraduate students as well, in the form of summer internships and projects.
Perhaps the most prominent system the HTIC has developed is its Mobile Eye Surgical Unit (MESU™), a stable and self-contained mobile platform that provides a sterile environment for performing high quality cataract surgeries in rural areas that lack basic amenities. MESU™ has been approved by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and has been used to conduct more than 1200 surgeries till date. Another system created at HTIC is Eye PAC™, an imaging technology that can diagnose ophthalmological conditions such as diabetic retinopathy using images of the eye alone. https://htic.iitm.ac.in/.