Indian firm Friends Learn’s technology that enables a ‘digital vaccine’ to cure real life issues through metaverse gets patent by US authorities
Indian biomedical tech entrepreneur and founder of Friends Learn, Bhargav Sri Prakash has been awarded world’s first patent by US authorities for a ‘digital vaccine,’ a platform that prevents real-life health issues through a metaverse.
Digital vaccines use applications via smart-phones, tablets, and other similar devices to inculcate positive responses from humans through neurocognitive training. Sri Prakash has received the patent for the ‘systems and methods used for digital project. It involves the use of artificial intelligence and a gamified metaverse platform.
In simple terms, digital vaccine uses artificial intelligence to create a person’s replica for a game in the metaverse. In the virtual world, the person is made to avoid unhealthy habits and as a result of this neuro-cognitive training, the virtual behaviour is translated into real-life implementation. So the person’s lifestyle-related diseases were treated with a digital vaccine.
Expressing his delight at the news Sri Prakash calls it a milestone for the scientific field of digital vaccines and for India’s biomedical innovation start-up space. “The platform has broad applications – it can potentially prevent a wide spectrum of diseases ranging from Covid-19 and influenza to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and certain cancers, and even cognitive diseases,” Sri Prakash told Times of India.
Formerly Chennai based Bhargav was a junior national tennis champion in India and even represented the country in international tournaments. After an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy he went to the University of Michigan and graduated with a master’s in automotive engineering. His first company in automotive simulation technologies was sold to a Detroit based firm and after selling his second start-up in educational gaming space he co-founded a US-based Hedge fund called Nirmana Capital Partners, LP. He then started Friends Learn with a vision to improve the health of children globally.
Sri Bhargav’s digital vaccines are currently being deployed in selected schools across the world and has applied for patents in India, Europe, China, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Shunning apprehensions over whether digital games should be used to promote physical activity and healthy diet Sri Bhargava says, ‘what sets the digital vaccine apart is its implicit learning and neurocognitive training mechanism components, which can induce biomarker level changes in individuals, thus helping trigger lifestyle habit formation, and reduce risk and incidence of diseases,” he says.
“There is no greater need than for frontier technologies like neural networks, metaverse, NFTs, neurocognitive computing, AI, vaccines to be harnessed in ethical and scientific ways, guided by collective civilisational wisdom one world, to protect the health of the future of humanity.” Sri Bhargava wrote on LinkedIN.
Article Credits: Mint