Gender, Health, And Digitalisation: The Possibilities Of Femtech In Indian Healthcare

India’s leading femtech innovator, Swathi Kulkarni shares how femtech will ensure equality and accessibility in Healthcare.

Femtech is a term that refers to diagnostic tools, products, services, wearables, and softwares that use technology to address women’s health issues, including menstrual health, reproductive health, sexual health, maternal health, and menopause.

She is speaking ahead of the Global Women’s Health Innovation Conference which is scheduled for 12 and 13 December in Mumbai, India where she serves on the advisory board. The conference is organized to highlight inequalities in women’s health and to build conversation around women’s health and femtech in India.

Swathi Kulkarni, the Co-founder, and CEO of Elda Health says, “Gender inequality in health is a real issue and women’s health is a largely underserved, under-diagnosed, and underfunded segment. Despite women being one-half of the world’s population, women’s health has not been considered mainstream in healthcare.“

Femtech has massive potential as an enabler in bringing equality across women’s healthcare as  Swathi says. Femtech is a term that refers to diagnostic tools, products, services, wearables and softwares that use technology to address women’s health issues, including menstrual health, reproductive health, sexual health, maternal health and menopause. Femtech companies also provide products that encompass general health conditions that affect women more than men or affect them differently than they affect men, such as osteoporosis.

“Two most significant gifts of technology for women are; democratization of health and discretion. femtech allows dignity of privacy, should a woman choose not to involve another person in her health situation and let her receive customised help.” 

Swathi Kulkarni, Co-founder and CEO of Elda Health

According to World Health Organisation, gender inequality poses barriers for women and girls to access health information and critical services, including restrictions on mobility, lack of decision-making autonomy, limited access to finances, lower literacy rates, and discriminatory attitude of healthcare providers. This inequality is not only limited to information, access, and availability but is also present in every foundation of healthcare research.

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