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PATH recognizes the contributions of Dr. Gaetano Borriello

February 6, 2015 by Richard Anderson

Digital and data transformation
Saying goodbye to a great friend and innovator, whose contributions impacted thousands of children and mothers in developing countries.
Teams working with PATH's MACEPA program in Zambia use Android smart phones equipped with Open Data Kit software to collect data.

One of Gaetano Borriello’s remarkable abilities was to anticipate trends so he could be an early developer of technologies that would later be deployed in low-resource settings such as the Open Data Kit software to collect testing and demographic informat

Dr. Gaetano Borriello, University of Washington professor of Computer Science & Engineering, passed away at his home following a long fight with cancer. This remembrance was written by PATH’s Richard Anderson, a colleague of Dr. Borriello’s at the University of Washington.

On February 1, PATH and the entire global health community lost a great friend and innovator.

Dr. Borriello’s work often focused on applying mobile technologies to public health problems in the developing world.

He led the Open Data Kit (ODK) project, developing a suite of open source tools to support mobile data collection solutions. The tools were designed to be “easy to try, easy to use, easy to modify, and easy to scale.”

Portrait of Gaetano Borreillo.

Dr. Gaetano Borriello. Photo: University of Washington.

Dr. Borriello’s projects and students played an important role in a range of PATH projects including:

  • Human Milk Banking, where the FoneAstra Temperature Monitor is a crucial component of a low-cost milk pasteurization system.
  • Mobile Midwife project, where mobile devices were used by nurses to support household visits with decision support, data collection, and a video education application.
  • mPneumonia, a mobile application that uses a pulse oximeter to help with the diagnosis and management of childhood pneumonia.
  • Data collection for Malaria Control and Elimination Partnership in Africa (MACEPA), where community health workers used ODK to record malaria cases.

One of Dr. Borriello’s remarkable abilities was to anticipate trends so that he could be an early developer of technologies that would later be appropriate to deploy in low-resource settings. He began his work on ODK when smartphones were exclusively a product for the affluent, arguing that they would soon be ubiquitous, creating opportunities to provide services to a vast number of people in developing countries.

In his honor, the Computer Science & Engineering Department at the University of Washington has established the Gaetano Borriello Fellowship for Change, which will support students whose work focuses on exploring how technology can improve underserved populations.

Dr. Borriello’s work has positively impacted the lives of many thousands of children and mothers in developing countries. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.