When they entered the Vodafone Americas Foundation’s Wireless Innovation Project last year, the goal of the team behind MobileODT was to eradicate cervical cancer through an application that turns any digital camera, whether on a smartphone or endoscope, into a device capable of detecting early signs of cancer. Since winning first place in the 2014 competition, it has strengthen the company’s goal to continue to be help to save lives and help medical programs become more efficient.

Bruce Kahn, M.D., at the Department of Ob/Gyn with the Scripps Clinic, a trusted partner of MobileODT, said: “I’ve been working with women with cervical cancer for more than 20 years. I think this technology may be a real breakthrough in the diagnosis in pre-cancerous changes, not only in the developing world but perhaps in the developed world as well. This could actually replace Pap smear testing.”

At the time of the competition, the company had plans in place to field test the device to help detect early signs of cervical cancer for a clinic in Mexico. After the competition, MobileODT piloted its innovation, the mobile colposcope in five countries with partner organizations including ProSalud and Scripps. The other countries the company has piloted its mobile colposcope with include Haiti with Partners in Health, Kenya with the Global Health Group of MassGeneral Hospital, and Botswana with the Botswana-UPenn Partnership, and the US with Scripps.

In September 2014, MobileODT started work in Tijuana, Mexico, together with ProSalud and Scripps, where they conducted an initial training on the mobile colposcope and learned about the needs of the mobile clinics that ProSalud operates. As of November, they have begun manufacturing their first batch of mobile colposcopes, and will begin sales in December. The technology MobileODT is producing looks to not only change how cancer is detected, but could decrease the number of women that suffer unnecessarily due to a lack of early detection.

For more information about MobileODT and its efforts around the world, visit www.mobileoct.com.