• Society

Family Loss Prompts Cancer App Win

• By Sam Sopich
• April 1, 2022 10:11 AM

Poor get access to quality advice

PHNOM PENH–Seeing many people die of cancer, including her grandmother, inspired Sokhachan Socheata and her team to create an app people can use to consult specialists and get healthcare information online.

The CancerCo. app can be used at any time and anywhere.  

Her four-member team has just won the SmartSpark Cohort 9 competition and more than $3,000 for their pitch of CancerCo. which is about learning about cancer prevention and detection through short articles, videos, FAQs and consultations with oncologists.

 “I am really excited that my team won this competition and I hope this business model will help Cambodians who have cancer and can prevent it at an earlier stage, not a late one like my grandmother,” said Socheata, a second-year student majoring in management information systems at Paragon University.  

Socheata, 19, said she wanted to launch a project to raise awareness about preventing and detecting cancer at an early stage and which can help people to track their symptoms.

She also thanked her teammates, Sin Hourt Heng, Kim Soung Eung, Siekmouy Kou and her mentors to make the project work effectively.

“Since my grandmother passed away and I launched this app, my family really supported me because it’s an issue for all people,” she said. 

There are always problems when patients want to consult doctors because they seem to be busy. In her app, there will be a specific schedule of expert doctors to consult.

She said she had been passionate about being a social entrepreneur to help people since high school. She made her dream come true after joining the team to compete in the Smart Spark competition.

She encouraged young people to take part in any competition and innovation to solve community problems because school can teach them theory but real practice is a good lesson to learn.

She believed that this app will enhance the quality of cancer care, eliminate trust barriers, empower and boost the confidence of people struggling with cancer and eliminate negative judgments around cancer issues.

Teammate Sin Hourt, a third-year student majoring in business administration, was inspired to apply because a student can create only business ideas. These can be put into practice with cash support.

He saw a lot of people with cancer who find it hard to find a doctor when they are sick. Using this app, poor patients can read articles, watch videos and discuss their cases with a doctor.

“We try to make people aware of cancer prevention and comfort them to discuss and make appointments with a doctor easily. Even if they are poor, they can get our services” he said.

“I am passionate about innovating things that can help solve our society’s issues that’s why CancerCo. is our achievement to make people aware so that their cancer is not detected too late,” he said.

He believed that with the app people can observe their health and follow it up to get treatment on time.

Sinhourt encouraged students to focus not only on their majors but also to take part in any competition or create ideas to solve community problems because this improves their capacity, knowledge and skills.

 The CancerCo. app is essential to empower millions of people to become more aware of cancer and gain access to quality treatment, he said.

According to ASCO Post figures from 2020, the median age of the population is 26 years, and life expectancy is 66 years. Cambodia has 0.2 physicians and 0.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people.

The highest rates of cancer-related mortality are caused by liver, lung, and colorectal cancers. For women, breast cancer is the most common by incidence, although liver cancer has the highest mortality.

The incidence of cancer is expected to rise from 15,362 cases in 2018 to 30,451 cases in 2040. In 2018, there were an estimated 11,636 cancer-related deaths in Cambodia.