Nand Wadhwani

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Born in India in 1947, Nand spent much of his youth in Hong Kong, where he received his initial training in the computer industry. He emigrated to Canada in 1967, where he lived for many years. He was employed as International Training Coordinator of the Systems Department for the Bank of Nova Scotia, and later as Worldwide Software Sales Support Manager for IBM. During this time he also served as president of his own international trading company. He travelled widely in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and was profoundly affected by his contact with the primitive health care services available for Third World children. For more than 15 years he directed various committees in Canada, U.S. and elsewhere, providing volunteer fundraising, publicity and information services for UNICEF.

Nand was determined to find ways to reach health care workers and poverty-stricken families even in the most remote villages with basic information about malnutrition and especially about dehydration from diarrhoeal disease which was taking the lives of over two million children a year. He was convinced that the future lay in the nascent Internet. In 1997, he moved to Costa Rica and spent several years developing first his Rehydration Project and later his Health Education to Villages (HETV). The Rehydration Project is the world's largest online data bank in the field of diarrhoea management, control, prevention and treatment, as well as oral rehydration. Amongst several other projects, HETV has worked with UNICEF and the State of Maharashtra in India.

In 2007, Nand returned to his native India, where he continued to develop and support new research on health and education projects. In 2008 he completed work on a new on-line portal on Mother, Infant and Young Child Nutrition and Malnutrition.

Much of his work has been carried out, often in partnership with development organizations and national or state governments, in educating mothers and children, teachers and students, doctors and village health workers, community leaders and the public at large about nutrition, health, water, hygiene, sanitation and disease management.

Nand firmly believes that the most effective and efficient way to advance health education is by employing a mix of established and newer communication technologies to deliver contextually-appropriate messages directly to the people who need it most. He is presently working on the development of HealthPhone, an illiterate-friendly mobile phone with preloaded, reliable, relevant health and nutrition material in various formats and that will initially be offered in English and 15 Indian languages. Using rich multimedia, HealthPhone will put life-saving and life-changing facts and methodologies directly in the hands of those who can use it in an accessible format and with 24x7 availability, anywhere they go.

Nand now lives in Luk Chau, Lamma Island, Hong Kong.