Technology is developing fast, it seems there are constantly new gadgets or machines being invented, some are more beneficial to everyday life than others, but the technological advancements recently coming from India are remarkable. Thanks to India’s medical scientists, smartphones are now useful for much more than checking Google Maps, taking selfies and browsing Facebook. First, Indian doctors saved cardiac patients lives using WhatsApp, and now Indian scientists have found a way to detect Malaria using smartphones. Who would have thought your phone could know you had malaria?

Dr Sai Siva Gorthi and his team from the department of Instrumental and Applied Physics, have turned smartphones into much more than an accessory. They discovered a way of turning a smartphone into a powerful microscopic device that eradicates the need for various stages of blood testing to detect malaria. Dr Gorthi and his team replaced the phone’s camera with the extremely high resolution optics of a microscope. All it requires is a very small amount of human blood to conduct an analysis, which will take under two minutes. “We are not saying that we have invented a new means of detecting the disease. Clinical microscopy is still the gold standard of diagnosis. However, we have definitely found a faster and accurate way of doing tests so that they are no longer restricted to labs,” said Dr Gorthi.

Malaria is genuinely a serious problem in India. Ashwani Kumar from the National Institute of Malaria Research, states: “About 2 million confirmed malaria cases and 1,000 deaths are reported annually, although 15 million cases and 20,000 deaths are estimated by WHO South East Asia Regional Office. India contributes 77% of the total malaria in Southeast Asia.” With so many cases of malaria, and the fatal consequences of the disease, the invention of this new malaria detecting smartphone could play a vital part in the fight to prevent deaths caused by the disease. This invention has earned India global attention from inventors and scientists around the world, as malaria is not only a problem in India, many other countries in Asia and Africa are also effected. This is certainly an invention that could earn India a reputation as one of the countries at the forefront of scientific invention.

And it is not just science that is attracting international attention to India. From medical science to business, India’s economy is growing and international businesses are recognizing India as one of the world’s fastest rising market places. This has been largely help by the introduction of .in domain endings that can be registered on this site, for example. The domain ending assists visilbilty for an Indian company within their own country, helping potential customers find local websites easier on Google.

So what does this mean for the economic future of India? Not long ago the future looked pretty bleak, with inflation, corruption, and ever-increasing poverty. However, the economy is certainly improving, and with an improved economy there will likely be more money to invest in new technological and scientific inventions. We can’t wait to see what other uses for smartphones India’s scientists discover.