The two Pakistani female winners of GE & Ashoka Changemakers Award for their best innovative ideas on Thursday hoped their projects will serve the female section of the society in a better way. Seher Hafeez had coined the idea to set up an exclusive bus commuting service for women called - Busanti and Dr Zahra Shah set forth a concept to launch an online healthcare centre for female treatment through home-based lady doctors - called DoctHERS-in-the-House won the global women empowering award.
Talking about her award wining project at a 'Roundtable with GE-Ashoka Changemakers Award Winners,' Seher said: "Busanti is an idea to empower women". She said that the project was beginning in a couple of weeks in the metropolis, aiming at providing access to safe and dignified transport and access to quality and affordable healthcare," to the female.
It is an incorporated project for travellers to take advantage of their commuting on the country's first exclusive women bus with the healthcare insurances, she said, adding that "the idea is a bus pass issued with healthcare insurance".
She said the Daewoo is supporting the project with provision of a small fleet of eight to 10 buses to ply on different routes from Surjani town to Clifton and Defence via Merewether Tower. Daewoo is on board for the project and negotiation with it is under way to begin a pilot service that is expected in a couple of weeks, Seher said, adding that "we are hopeful to run this project."
The conceiver of DoctHERS idea, Dr Zahra Shah said: "treatment through technology connection is the idea," behind her globally acclaimed project. A pilot project of online medical treatment to patients is already running in city's poor area of Sultanabad, she said
She said that the idea was to bring the services of home-sitting doctors in use for poor areas' public through online connectivity. She was of the view that a majority of medical students were women who for different constraints cannot practice their profession could now through online connectivity provide treatment to patients. Doctors going abroad for specialisation can also work through internet connection to provide treatment to patients, Dr Shah said, adding that India and Afghanistan are already running such a project while Pakistan is behind.
She said the treatment will be done through video-conferencing to carry out diagnostic and remote diagnostic practices. She said the online virtual clinics are running in different countries of the world for years. During the questions and answers session: Seher said Daewoo is aiding the project without any profit as part of its CRS. She said Daewoo will provide security guards at each bus and trained drivers.
Besides, she said, the Busanti project is planning to have female conductors. She ruled out competition with what she called a "transport mafia", saying her aim is to provide a secure commuting facility to women, instead. Earlier, President and CEO of GE, Sarim Shaikh said the two Pakistan successful female participants of the contests are among the three winners of the award across the world. Each winner was given away a $25,000 prize for their innovative ideas, he said.
Director, Ashoka Changemakers, Sabeen Haque, said the contest received 20 percent entries from Pakistan. She said her organisation is aiding social entrepreneurs and working with public, private and academia. She said two women from Pakistan won the prize. Through a video message, CEO, Aman Foundation, Ahsan Jamil appreciated the ideas of both successful contenders. He said the DoctHERS-in-the-House will help deal with the medial problems of women. He hoped the Busanti project will also ensure a safe, easy and harassment-free travel for women. He said women are good managers. The third successful innovative idea was from Jordan known as Handasiyat.net to set up a virtual platform to enable Arab female engineers across the Middle East and North Africa to telecommute.