Five children die of malnutrition every minute. Such deaths are preventable, but one of the hurdles to stopping them is accurately identifying those in need. Normally, making the necessary measurements requires bulky equipment and trained specialists. Soon that could all be replaced by a mobile phone.

The idea comes from Kenya-based non-profit Kimetrica. They’ve been working on a system that uses artificial intelligence to detect a child’s level of malnutrition from a single photo. The system is called MERON – Method for Extremely Rapid Observation of Nutritional status – which they presented on 15 and …