TEIN (Asia Pacific)

The surgeons at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Korea, are pioneers in minimally invasive surgery. Through live streaming of operations Prof. He-Seong Han and his staff have been able to train hundreds of surgeons across Asia, without need or cost for them to travel to Korea.

For more than a decade, the Telemedicine Development Center of Asia based at Kyushu University Hospital in Fukuoka, Japan has facilitated remote training of surgeons, sharing of knowledge and the spread of best practice across the Asia-Pacific region, and more recently globally.

The Asia ConneXions program connects Australian schools with schools in Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia and India over high-speed networks using high definition video conferencing. “The program’s success lies in its ability to provide participants with a very personal and experiential opportunity to learn about the diversity within and between the countries of the Asia region..."

Collaborations for Dengue Fever and Chikungunya initiatives are excellent examples of the scalable nature of efforts to build communities. As such, the tools and capabilities are easily adaptable to the plethora of infectious diseases that pose a global challenge.

To meet world population demands for food it has been estimated that the production of rice, the world’s most important staple food, must increase by 24% by 2050. As well as the challenges involved in growing more rice on less land and water, farmers need new rice varieties adapted to changing climatic conditions.