U Mobile, Sun Life Malaysia to explore 5G trials on digital health use cases

• The two parties will look at potentially building a digital health ecosystem
• Consider the possibility of setting up a digital health innovation incubator and accelerator

U MOBILE, the data centric telco, on March 26 signed a memorandum of understanding with Sun Life Malaysia, a Malaysian insurance and family takaful provider, strengthening their working relationship.

The latest MOU will see the telco collaborating with Sun Life Malaysia to explore 5G trials on digital health use cases. Secondly, the two parties will leverage each other’s strengths, capabilities and network of providers to potentially build a digital health ecosystem.

The third area that U Mobile and Sun Life Malaysia will be working closely together is to venture into the possibility of setting up a digital health innovation incubator and accelerator focused on providing funding, relevant mentorship and investment resources to selected digital health content developers and providers.

U Mobile chief executive officer Wong Heang Tuck, shared the significance of this partnership: “U Mobile believes in the unlimited potential of 5G. Hence, we are working to conduct testbeds and trials in various business verticals to attain relevant insights to minimise challenges when we roll-out.

“In this instance, we truly believe advances in technology and connectivity will enable healthcare services to be more accessible and inclusive than ever. To realise that vision, we could not find a better partner than Sun Life Malaysia.

“We have had a great working relationship with them since launching GoLife, which made us the first telco to offer life micro-insurance. We hope through this latest partnership U Mobile will be able to bring even greater benefits to Malaysians through 5G technology.”

Sun Life Malaysia chief executive officer and president / country head Raymond Lew, said: “Technology offers immense opportunities for us to build a sustainable business, as shown through the existing digital distribution of our insurance products through leveraging on U Mobile’s infrastructure and network.

“Sun Life Malaysia is also constantly looking for partnership opportunities to increase our engagement with consumers, by understanding their behaviours to better evaluate risks and reduce costs of our solutions to ensure more can be insured. We believe that through this expanded collaboration, it will give us access to the potential of 5G technology and with our established relationship with U Mobile, we can be at the forefront to give Malaysians smarter, simpler and more cost-effective insurance solutions and services.”

The MOU signifies the extension of an existing partnership, allowing U Mobile and Sun Life Malaysia the possibility to explore and expand into the digital health space through 5G testbeds and trials.

One such example may include U Mobile potentially working with Sun Life Malaysia’s network of medical providers on remote healthcare use cases. Another trial could see the use of Analytics and Machine Learning for wellness monitoring so that deeply personalised wellness recommendations may be presented to end user.