The ITU recognizes the Carlos Slim Foundation and América Móvil for their technological innovation in health care

  • Carlos Slim Helú received the WSIS award for the development of the digital platform Monitor FCS, from Houlin Zhao, Secretary General of the ITU.
  • Monitor FCS, developed for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, has analyzed information on more than 50 million reports of symptoms, which made it possible to trace positive cases, help break the chain of infections and maintain safe spaces.

Mexico City, June 6, 2022. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) granted América Móvil the World Summit on the Information Society Prize for the development and implementation, together with the Carlos Slim Foundation, of two apps for the monitoring, prevention, tracing and care of the population during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The WSIS prize granted in the category of e-Health to the app Monitor FCS, recognizes that the app facilitated caring for and monitoring the health of the employees of América Móvil, Carso Group, Carlos Slim Foundation and other companies, as well as their relatives.

Carlos Slim Helú received the prize from the Secretary General of the ITU, Houlin Zhao, given his participation as Co-President of the Broadband Commission of the Union, before the plenary of the commissioners and the President of Ruanda, Paul Kagame, which held the organization’s annual spring meeting in Kigali, under the title “Promoting the inclusive digital transformation”.

The Honorary and Lifetime President of América Móvil pointed out that one of the priorities of the Group is health care and the wellbeing of workers, which is why the platform Monitor FCS was developed, to which around 500 thousand people were registered, which generated more than 50 million reports of symptoms that were analyzed to determine if a person was exposed to risks or if it was necessary to isolate possible contacts early and thereby keep workplaces safe, protecting each employee.

Mr. Slim Helú added that the platform, developed by Arturo Elias Slim, prevented around 85 thousand infections, and made it possible to implement efficient work protocols to substantially reduce the risks, thanks to which the rate of infections among the employees of América Móvil and other companies of the Carso Group was considerably lower than the national and local averages.

Monitor FCS is a good example of the fact that the use of technologies helps to improve people’s health and health care”, concluded the also Co-President of the ITU Broadband Commission.

In mid-March 2020, faced with the pandemic caused by COVID-19, América Móvil, in coordination with the Carlos Slim Foundation and Claro Shop, a company of the Carso Group, developed in less than two weeks the digital platform Monitor FCS, a mobile and web app that can trace in real time and individually the state of health of employees and their relatives, facilitating a transparent, reliable and automated flow of information that is used to their benefit.

Through Monitor FCS, there has been daily monitoring in real time of the state of health of employees, their relatives and collaborators of América Móvil and Carso Group in Latin America, as well as the public in general with the COVID-19MX app.

With the use of the app, it was possible to detect more than 21 thousand cases, and take immediate actions such as isolation, contact tracing and adherence to the rest of the prevention and control measures in the COVID-Carso Protocol in the companies of the Group, which helped to avoid, in addition to some 80 thousand infections, 7 thousand hospitalizations and around 3 thousand deaths.

The app has incorporated artificial intelligence models for the detection of probable cases of COVID-19, simplified health status reporting processes and facilitated integration with platforms that support work health management like MIDO that are able to determine and monitor chronic illnesses such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension and like the app Mi Salud Integral which assists in the adoption of healthy habits.

Fundamentally, the app complies with all privacy protocols and ensures that individual information remains secure.

Simultaneously, through América Móvil and its subsidiaries Claro and Telcel, agreements were reached with health authorities of different Latin American countries, through which apps similar to Monitor FCS could be developed, like COVID-19MX, to collaborate in the actions of prevention, containment and care of the general population during the health emergency. In this way, the authorities were able to better identify the chains of infection.

The WSIS prize granted by the ITU recognizes the contribution of América Móvil and of the Carlos Slim Foundation to developing mobile apps that bring health services closer to people, wherever they may be, facilitating diagnosis, medical care and epidemiological oversight.