Rajani Manimchand

Sri Lankan inventor revolutionizing affordable healthcare through biotechnology

Rajani Manimchand (b.1985) is a Sri Lankan biomedical engineer whose innovations have transformed access to medical diagnostics in low-income regions. Growing up in Colombo's Pettah district, she witnessed the challenges of healthcare inequality firsthand. After earning degrees in biochemistry from the University of Peradeniya, she developed the LifeLens device during her MIT fellowship - a portable, smartphone-linked microscope that detects malaria and tuberculosis with 98% accuracy at 10% the cost of traditional methods.

Her 2017 startup MediCrea Technologies has distributed over 20,000 units across 15 countries through partnerships with UNICEF. In 2021, she created the CholeraChek rapid testing kit which helped contain outbreaks in Yemen and Haiti. Her work earned a Rolex Award for Enterprise and a spot on Forbes Asia's Under 30 list.

Ms. Manimchand advocates for open-source medical technology through her GitHub repository, ensuring her inventions remain accessible. She co-authored the Global Health Tech Manifesto with WHO experts, influencing policy in 12 developing nations. Her TEDx talk How I Created a $10 Malaria Test has over 3 million views.