From left to right: June Sugiyama, Vodafone Americas Foundation with MIT Solve Innovation for Women Awards finalists Morgan Lance of OneSky and Ameya Bondre and Aditya Kulkarni of CareMother
The Innovation for Women Prize awards solutions that use technology to empower and enrich the lives of women and girls. We received incredible nominations and submissions over the last few months that underscore how technology can be used to better the lives of women and girls around the world.
At the MIT Challenge Finals in New York this past weekend, we met with finalists for the award as they presented their solutions. After a great weekend of collaboration and competition, we’re excited to announce the winners of the Innovation for Women Prize.
CareMother is an affordable, non-invasive, wireless, smartphone integrated, and AI-based fetal heart rate (FHR) monitor that can help reduce infant mortality rates. CareMother’s monitor system measures fetal cardiac function to reduce the dependence on a specialist doctors pre-labor and can predict premature labor. The solution sits within a larger program that includes antenatal tests by frontline workers using portable diagnostic kits for those who lack internet availability. Since 2015, CareMother has registered 30,000+ pregnancies (12000+ high-risk) via 260 community health workers across ten states of India, in rural, urban and tribal areas, with 15+ Government, non-profit and corporate partners.
OneSky provides high quality early childhood care and development (ECD) training to communities and childcare workers in an effort to provide nurturing responsive care and early education for vulnerable children living in industrial parks across Asia. The program aims to create a robust global platform to be able to prepare local children for primary school through exploration and early literacy skills to set them up for success.
Raaji is an AI-powered chatbot that equips girls in developing countries with information about effective birth control methods, ways to improve menstrual health management as well as STD education. Due to lack of education and healthcare infrastructure in most developing countries, many girls lack knowledge about sexual health, contraception and menstrual hygiene management practices. Raaji aims to positively impact the health of millions of girls in many countries as each user’s content can be contextualized for multiple languages and connected to SMS in cases of internet unavailability.
At the Vodafone Americas Foundation, we believe that by investing in the combination of women and technology, we are investing in change and the ability to make a true social impact globally. The winners of the 2019 MIT Solve Innovation for Women Prize epitomize the solutions we champion in using technology to enrich the lives of women and girls around the world. We’re honored to be able to support each of these winners on their mission and we can’t wait to see what they do next.