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Marina van Damme grant for telemedicine

Regien Sumo is the TU/e winner of the Marina van Damme grant 2020. She will be using the 9000 euros it provides to help fund her project in Central Asia. This aims to provide pregnant women with medical care delivered remotely. “I feel motivated to help women who have no access to high quality medical services.”

by
photo Tom Doms
Regien Sumo. Photo | ADL

Dr. Regien Sumo, who obtained her doctorate in 2014 at Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences, is currently in Abu Dhabi where she is combining two careers. She is a lecturer in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the New York University and a manager at the international management consultancy Arthur D. Little, a position in which she focuses on innovation in healthcare. “The nice thing about my work is that it allows me to combine my PhD background with what I am doing in the commercial world. I teach, I'm still doing research and at the same time I am in the fortunate position of being able to advise companies and government bodies on the most interesting issues related to innovation. Added to which, both jobs offer me the chance to explore the world and to live and work here, there and everywhere. I am learning about new cultures and feel like a global citizen.”

Sumo submitted her application for the Marina van Damme with a view to using her knowledge and network to help the war-torn region that is her homeland. She was seven when she came to the Netherlands as an Iraqi refugee. “I feel motivated to help women who have no access to high quality medical services,” she tells us, speaking from the United Arab Emirates.

Medical app

Sumo is the founder of MediQonnect, a project in telemedicine, a form of medical care that allows treatment providers to bridge a great distance by using technology. She wants to and will develop an app that puts women in Central Asia in touch with Western physicians, allowing them to access advice during and after a pregnancy. This approach will improve the quality of medical care and bring about a fall in the mortality rate among mothers and children; this is her wish. The prototype has already been developed and to take this forward and create a workable app Sumo needs 12,000 US dollars. “The 9000 euros will be really useful; I can finance the rest myself. I hope I can launch the app commercially within six months. Although this depends on the cooperation of NGOs and government authorities.”

That Sumo cannot receive the award in person today is something she very much regrets. “For the past six months I have been in the Netherlands, but now I've just returned to Dubai. Under normal circumstances I travel to the Netherlands every two or three months.” Today her sisters will receive the check on her behalf.

Regien’s younger sister Hegien Sumo receives the cheque from Frank Baaijens. |Photo | Tom Doms

The runner-up, who takes home a check for 2500 euros, is the Italian Federica Sammali. After obtaining her doctorate at TU/e in 2019, she gained a postdoc position at e/MTIC. Her aim is to apply herself as a clinical physicist in order to improve the diagnosis and treatment of heart patients.

This is the thirty-ninth year that Marina van Damme, an alumna of TU Delft, has awarded a sum of money to young women engineers to help them take the next step in their careers. These days she awards a grant and an incentive prize to each of the four Dutch universities of technology. Today she named the thirteenth TU/e winner. Sumo is now entitled to join the Marina van Damme Network.  

 

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