Cohesu has been dedicated to fighting poverty in communities for many years. As we continue to grow, we recognize the importance of incorporating new technologies to streamline our operations and better serve our beneficiaries. In March 2017, we partnered with Simprints, a nonprofit tech company committed to fighting poverty, to integrate novel biometric hardware and software tools into our programs.
Empowering Our Programs with Biometric Technology
Simprints has developed an open-source fingerprint system that is 228% more accurate and 4x cheaper than existing solutions. This biometric technology has been integrated into our in-house Android application called Cohesion, which was specifically built to help us oversee field-based operations.
The biometric scanner integrated into Cohesion has played a major role in Cohesu's school-based programs by enabling us to accurately identify individual students regardless of location.
By being able to uniquely identify an individual, Cohesion is able to tag specific information to them, such as their biometric data, age, gender, height, weight, or even more interesting data such as their infection status, timestamps of their enrolment and treatment, or even their geo-location.
This opens up the ability to identify emerging patterns that would otherwise have been difficult to spot. With the data we collect during the school-based programs, we are able to geo-tag infections with great granularity as well as analyze the effectiveness of our treatment cycles, which allows us to quantify our impact.
Making a Difference in Communities
Our partnership with Simprints has had a significant impact on communities. For instance, we were able to successfully tackle the jiggers menace through the Shoe giving and jiggers tracking/treatment regimens. The integration of biometric hardware and software tools has made it possible for us to accurately identify and serve our beneficiaries, ensuring that no one is overlooked.
Our Future with Technology
Cohesion is constantly undergoing iterations, and we foresee a great future in its service to the operations of Cohesu. We plan to use the technology to simplify mapping and beneficiary enrolments, as well as identify emerging data and patterns. By doing so, we hope to continue to make an even bigger impact in communities.