The Praesens Foundation was founded by Dr. Rudi Pauwels, serial entrepreneur and founder of, among others, the Mechelen biotech companies Tibotec, Virco and Biocartis. He was urged to start this initiative after he himself had identified the flaws in West Africa during the Ebola outbreak in 2014-2015. The lack of resources and the limited access to on-site diagnostics technologies showed that there is a real need for rapid, accurate and user-friendly diagnostic tests that reach patients, even in isolated areas. In less than two years, the idea evolved from a rough sketch to a fully equipped...