The Satyam Foundation, with personal funds from Mr. Raju, initially funded EMRI’s world-class call centre, helping develop hardware and software needs, ambulances, staffing and office space. EMRI also established a two-year post graduation programme in emergency care with guidance from the Stanford School of Medicine. The EMRI team visited emergency response centres throughout the United States, Europe and Asia to discover best practices. EMRI and HMRI have also benefited from continuous inputs from McKinsey management consultants. Operational funding for the programme was arranged through the state government. Today, EMRI is a public private partnership. EMRI and Ramalinga Raju, through a private foundation, provide support for senior management, continued software development and research. Recently, the Indian government contracted EMRI to undertake expansion of the emergency response network, which will be operative in ten states by the end of 2008.

Satyam Computer Services Ltd has recently formed a joint venture with Cisco, Satyam Global Life Net, to bring together communication technologies and applications for health services. They hold the intellectual property rights of EMRI and HMRI and will soon be offering consulting services to countries, states and municipalities outside of India to provide similar services. In calling home to serve her own health needs, India may also help the rest of the world meet theirs.

The writer is a biophysicist, entrepreneur and philanthropist