PITTSBURGH — At a press conference in Oakland Monday morning, Dr. Vishnu Vardhan and Harsha Vardhini announced a financial gift to the University of Pittsburgh – part of a $20 million investment for the creation of the Vijayalakshmi Innovation Center in Women’s Health Analytics and Research (VIHAR) – a state-of-the-art initiative that founders hope will help reduce global health disparities for women and girls.
“The mission of VIHAR is to empower girls and women through technology, health technology, and systems,” said Vanathi Gopalakrishnan, VIHAR founding director.
VIHAR is a virtual library of sorts, a worldwide database to help women overcome the medical challenges they face and a comprehensive resource to put best practices in place for women across the globe. Those behind the initiative say it will help to detect issues early on – and utilize innovative and cost-effective treatments that aren’t available everywhere.
“This is a very specific type of generosity that’s really going to make an incredible difference for countless women and girls to live healthier and happier lives and close gaps that should never exist in the first place,” said Chancellor Joan Gabel from the University of Pittsburgh.
“Places all over the world do not necessarily have the kind of resources the United States has, and so one of the big things is actually – how can we go and capture the cultural environments, the ethnicities, and also bring that back to the United States,” Gopalakrishnan said.
Pitt officials said this will directly impact its schools of medicine and health sciences, ensuring that every medical and graduate student is literate and savvy with Artificial Intelligence and building an AI community in the city.
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