HONG KONG and LOS ANGELES, April 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Artificial Life, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: ALIF), a leading provider of award-winning mobile technology and applications, announced today an expansion of its business into South Africa through the extension of its Opus-M Health platform to include an application that will be used for the care management of HIV/AIDS patients.
The Company (ALIF) announced that it is in the process of establishing an office in South Africa in Stellenbosch near Capetown for its South African operations. The new business activities will be carried out in close co-operation with M-Health Middle East Ltd., a recent investment partner with Artificial Life. Both companies will focus on developing and expanding their mobile health care services and products customized for South Africa. The Company is in negotiations with several additional business partners in the region and is in the process of recruiting senior executives to assist in its efforts of building up local operations.
The Company currently already provides two mobile health monitoring apps: GluCoMo™, a diabetes monitoring app, and Opus-M Health: Neurodermatitis an app for monitoring the skin condition known as neurodermatitis. In the past, these two applications were targeted mainly to industrialized markets. However, GluCoMo™ as well as the upcoming patient monitoring app for HIV/AIDS will now also target the BRICS emerging markets of which South Africa is a new member. Featuring functions such as patient/medication monitoring, reminders, and education/health tips, the application will be built especially with the treatment of HIV/AIDS in mind. The Company will again be leveraging its Opus-M technology to power the backend system to ensure reliability and security of user-sensitive data.
According to AVERT, an estimated 5.6 million people are living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa in 2009 – more than any other country. It is estimated that in the same year, around 310,000 South Africans died of AIDS. The highest prevalence age group is 15-49, at 17.8 percent.
According to International Telecommunication Union's survey, South Africa is Africa's biggest mobile phone market as of 2009, with over 46.4 million mobile users. The number is forecasted to pass 52 million at the end of 2015. Also, data from On Device Research shows that 57 percent of South Africa's mobile Web users have never, or infrequently use the desktop Web.
The application will be offered to provide support and awareness to patients and caregivers as universally as possible. In an effort to further expand its reach, the Company aims to develop the application not only for smartphone platforms such as iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7, but also for lower grade phones.
The Company is in discussions with major health care providers and other partners to make the application available to a broader audience for free. The goal is to offer the mobile app for free to the end user and have health care providers, insurances and advertisers cover the cost.
"We believe that the BRICS markets will be central for mobile health services in the future. South Africa is a vast country with a strong need for diabetes and HIV/AIDS services especially for its non affluent population. We hope we can help with our products to improve the health care situation in South Africa," said Eberhard Schoneburg, CEO of Artificial Life, Inc.
For more information about products and mobile solutions by Artificial Life, please visit: www.artificial-life.com
Sources:
HIV & AIDS in South Africa." AIDS & HIV Information from the AIDS Charity AVERT. AVERT. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://www.avert.org/aidssouthafrica.htm>.
The Market for Mobile Phones in Africa." Africa Business Pages. Africa Business Pages. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://www.africa-business.com/features/mobile_phones_africa.html>.
Global Mobile Statistics 2011: All Quality Mobile Marketing Research, Mobile Web Stats, Subscribers, Ad Revenue, Usage, Trends… | MobiThinking." Home | MobiThinking. MobiThinking. Web. 14 Apr. 2011.<http://mobithinking.com/stats-corner/global-mobile-statistics-2011-all-quality-mobile-marketing-research-mobile-web-stats-su>.
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About Artificial Life, Inc.
Artificial Life, Inc. has been a pioneer in artificial intelligence and mobile technology since its inception in Boston in 1994. We are a public US corporation (OTC BB: ALIF) with listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurt: AIF.F; Xetra: AIF.DE) and headquarters and production center in Hong Kong. We have additional offices in Berlin, Germany (EMEA headquarters), Tokyo, Japan, and Santa Monica, USA. Currently our main business areas are: high quality (3D) interactive (massively multiplayer) mobile games, mobile participation television, mobile business applications, our powerful mobile commerce technology platform OPUS-M™ and our green IT solutions provided by Green Cortex, Inc. We have won many industry awards for our outstanding technology and products.
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