PROJECT: SMART SPEEN
Challenge: Last year, I entered Penn’s annual iDesign competition. The challenge was to develop a physical product innovation that solved a real world problem supported by a holistic design, engineering, and business plan. To achieve this goal, I partnered with three other students from the design and engineering schools and brought my business expertise to the table. We chose to focus on healthcare as this was a common interest among every member and we felt that it would make a large impact should we move forward in the competition.
Process: Looking to help those most in need, we focused our research and concept brainstorms on people in developing countries with limited access to healthcare. We looked at leading causes of death in these countries and learned that a large percentage of children under 5 years old die each year due to dehydration from diarrhea. After consulting with doctors at PennMed to understand low-cost mechanisms for dehydration, we developed a concept for a pacifier that could detect dehydration through saliva and alert the child’s caregiver of dehydration through an LED light.
My role focused on defining the roadmap for development and business plan should the product moved forward. I spoke with professionals from the Clinton Health Access Initiative to understand how distribution and funding could be achieved through governmental and non-profit organizations in Africa and quickly realized that they would be the determinants of success in such an inaccessible market. Much of the project’s success depended on their partnerships and the key next step was to validate their interest in the product idea. I chose to target organizations who already worked to combat dehydration as I felt this would be the easiest path into the market.
Results: Although we did not make it to the final round of the iDesign competition, this was an extremely useful learning experience in the development of a healthcare product and business model conception. Check out our video pitch submission below for an in-depth description of our solution.