Simprints, a Cambridge, UK-based biometrics company, develops Vero 2.0, an evolution of their original Vero scanner, based on SecuGen’s fingerprint module, to improve the distribution of healthcare, microfinance, and aid to the poor around the world.
Simprints, a Cambridge, UK-based biometrics company, develops Vero 2.0, an evolution of their original Vero scanner, based on SecuGen’s fingerprint module, to improve the distribution of healthcare, microfinance, and aid to the poor around the world.
Simprints is a nonprofit technology company that develops and deploys biometric technology uniquely for global health and development contexts. Traditional “Western” biometric technology is less effective in such contexts, where the environment in which people live means that they are more likely to have scarred or worn fingerprints. In contrast, Simprints built their system to be highly accurate with these kinds of challenging biometrics. Simprints’ solution integrates with existing mobile tools used by international NGOs and government ministries to verify that their services are reaching the intended beneficiaries. To date, the organization has helped more than 12 partners reach over 387,000 people across South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
The development of Vero 2.0 was kickstarted by a partnership with Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, and NEC to boost immunization coverage worldwide. Leveraging technology from Arm and SecuGen, Vero 2.0 has the following features: Near-Field Communications (NFC) to facilitate a seamless, wireless Bluetooth pairing with a mobile device; a redesigned printed circuit board (PCB) powered by the ARM Cortex-M0 32-bit MCU that enables streamlined manufacture; configurable LED colors for increased cultural acceptability and accessibility for the color-blind; fast image-transfer from scanner to mobile and backend storage for robust matching capabilities: and SecuGen’s high-resolution fingerprint sensor module capable of achieving up to 1,700 DPI for detailed image capture. Simprints is working with local manufacturer, Prima Electronic Services, to build 1,400 units for immediate use in healthcare projects across sub-Saharan Africa.
An improvement on its predecessor, Vero 2.0 is highly accurate, durable, wireless, water- and dust-proof, and ergonomic for health workers in low-resource areas. This development will bring Simprints and its partners one step closer to accurately verifying the identities of patients from 1 year old and above, in order to ensure that every single person is reached with life-saving medical care.
“Simprints helps us save time and labor. We like working with the scanner because it’s easier to identify patients,” says a community research assistant in Malawi.
“Simprints makes our workflow flawless. We had challenges before, like supply bottlenecks. We’d end up giving too many shoes, only to realize not too many of these children actually exist. So, we tied our distribution to a fingerprint,” says the leader of a local health organization in Kenya.
Jeff Brown, SecuGen’s VP of Sales added, “We were delighted to support Simprints to develop a product that met their specifications while keeping the costs down. We are excited to have our fingerprint technology play a part in projects involving low resource settings where the lives of so many can benefit.”
“Simprints is an impressive group of people with an equally impressive dedication to doing good in the world,” stated Won Lee, SecuGen’s CEO. “It is a privilege to work with them to bring such an important product to fruition.”
Nick Russel, Chairman of Prima Electronic Services, said, “Manufacturing a product that has such a positive impact on communities is something the team here at Prima are very proud to be involved with.”
About Simprints
Simprints ( https://www.simprints.com/ ) is a nonprofit tech company whose mission is to transform the way the world fights poverty. Simprints builds technology to radically increase transparency and effectiveness in global development, making sure that every vaccine, every dollar, and every public good reaches the people who need them the most. Simprints’ biometric hardware and software have been used to accurately link tens of thousands of people to their digital records and streamline the delivery of much-needed services in healthcare, microfinance, and aid distribution.
About SecuGen
SecuGen Corporation ( https://secugen.com/ ) is the world’s leading provider of advanced, optical fingerprint recognition technology, products, tools and platforms for physical and information security. SecuGen designs and develops FBI-certified fingerprint readers and OEM components, developer kits and software, including NIST/MINEX-compliant algorithms.
For over 20 years, SecuGen has been a driving force committed to delivering high quality, innovative, rugged, and price-performing products for a wide variety of applications such as insurance and banking, medical and health care, point of sale, logical and physical access control, mobile devices, AFIS and law enforcement, national ID, voter registration, SIM card authentication, fleet management, and many more.
SecuGen products are used by world-leading financial, medical, government, educational and corporate institutions and are sold through an extensive partner network of reseller partners including original equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors and system integrators in North America, Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Europe, and Asia.
SecuGen(R) is a registered trademark of SecuGen Corp. in the United States and other countries.
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