Grantee Spotlight: Nexleaf

We at Nexleaf Analytics are excited and grateful to be named a Foundation Beyond Belief grant awardee. At Nexleaf, we build data systems and analytics solutions that amplify the impact of life-saving equipment deployed all over the world.

Nexleaf’s biggest deployment to date is our ColdTrace technology platform, which currently protects the vaccine supply for 10% of the babies born on Earth each year. And our work to safeguard temperature-sensitive vaccines during transport and storage takes on even greater significance now, as the whole world prepares to receive and distribute Covid-19 vaccines.

Photo credit: Ian J. Connors

The fridges and freezers used to warehouse, transport, and safely store vaccines from the point of manufacture to the person getting immunized comprise the vaccine cold chain. The global vaccine system is a complex and extraordinarily wide-reaching endeavor, and until recently, very little was known about the storage conditions of vaccines at remote health clinics. Nexleaf is a pioneer in remote temperature monitoring (RTM) technology for hard-to-reach health clinics, and we’re currently iterating rapidly and scaling our tech to bring greater visibility to conditions during transport as well.

Photo credit: Tanvi Mishra

All of this infrastructure, and information systems like ColdTrace, have been built up in support of providing basic vaccines to every child on Earth. This endeavor of universal childhood immunization is supported by large organizations including the WHO, UNICEF, and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, and is currently expanding to include vaccines that protect against even more diseases.

Now, with COVID-19 vaccines expected in 2021, countries everywhere are figuring out how best to utilize their existing cold chain system to distribute vaccines, not just to babies and kids, but to everyone.

Fortunately, most countries already have data that can help them identify their best-performing and most reliable cold chain points, as well as those storage or distribution points that need to be strengthened. In addition to ColdTrace or other RTM system data, countries can use data from annual Effective Vaccine Management (EVM) assessments, from data loggers, and from state-of-the-art “smart” fridges that come with built-in RTM. As a non-profit technology and data analytics company, Nexleaf’s intent is to help countries allocate resources effectively to ensure successful immunization for kids — and now, with COVID-19, people of all ages. That’s why we build device-agnostic analytics tools with open APIs, and that’s why we’re committed to partnering with countries to help them get the most out of all of their data — not just their ColdTrace data — as they prepare for this critical vaccine distribution challenge.

To learn more about how countries can use data to prepare for emergency immunization campaigns like COVID-19, see our recent post here.

By now you can imagine how important Nexleaf’s work is as the world gets ready for a COVID-19 vaccine. Now imagine how much good they could do with even more support. Chipping in a small amount to our Annual Appeal today will help give larger, game-changing grants to organizations like Nexleaf in 2021.

Cover photo: Tanvi Mishra