How can social media and communications technologies be better harnessed to increase uptake of HIV testing among key populations?

 Tarandeep Anand is the founder and director of Adam’s Love (adamslove.org), and has been a TREAT Asia research partner since 2011.

 Bolin Cao is an Assistant Professor at the School of Media and Communication, Shenzhen University in Shenzhen, China. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina Project–China, leading a social media team to spur HIV testing among Chinese MSM.

Benjamin Eveslage is a Technical Officer with the LINKAGES Project, FHI 360, working with their Asia-Pacific Regional Office to support technology-driven approaches to improve service uptake.

Rena Janamnuaysook is a program coordinator at the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre, working with the USAID-funded LINKAGES Thailand Project. She also supports the Tangerine Community Health Center, Southeast Asia's first transgender-specific sexual health clinic.

Anand: How “emerging technologies can be harnessed to increase HIV testing” is what I had inquired back in 2010, and led to the establishment of Adam’s Love and TemanTeman.org, major HIV services scale-up innovations for MSM and Transgender women (TG), now serving millions of online key populations globally and offering sexual risk, behavioral counseling and linkage support to over 25,000 MSM, TG and youth annually.

As we get swept away by the “Amazon effect,” witness blurring lines between online and offline worlds, a sense of urgency to transform HIV service delivery is apparent. I will try to reflect on where we are and how we can benefit from the technology tailwinds to help implementers scale-up services. Read more via Amfar