On Feb. 25, 2020, the U. S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it had launched a $1 million Technology Accelerator Challenge to spur the design and development of non-invasive, handheld, digital technologies to detect, diagnose and guide therapies for diseases with high global and public health impact.

The challenge was focused on sickle cell disease, malaria and anemia. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation cooperated with NIH to help accelerate the transformation of design concepts into products for low-resource settings.