WHAT: Track the spread of disease using connected thermometers.
THE PROBLEM: For public health officials, tracking how a disease spreads is as important as understanding its symptoms. But today’s methods are unreliable or too slow.
THE PROPONENT: Kinsa CEO Inder Singh believes that giving away a low-cost, Internet-connected thermometer to the parents of schoolchildren will enable his company to reliably track the spread of illness—no pediatrician necessary.
THE PROCESS: The child’s temperature and symptoms are transmitted to the Kinsa cloud and aggregated.
THE ADDED PERK: Parents receive the aggregated information too, so they can learn if little Sophia’s fever is caused by a cold or if it’s something more serious.
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A version of this article appears in the January 1, 2016 issue of Fortune with the headline “Contagion Curtailed.”