P&M (Pregnancy and Me)

Society pays a huge price when over 15% of its teenage girls become pregnant, especially when they come from low-income, underprivileged households. This means an end to their development, forever shutting the door out of poverty.

We are proposing a healthcare education approach to support these girls through the misfortunes of their pregnancy as well as help them get back to their feet once they conceive.

Scaled globally, this solution offers a second chance to every single girl out there on the planet who's life has stagnated because of stigma, lack of proper care and support especially from the same society that should have protected her in the first place.

In the first five months of 2020 alone, thanks to Covid-19 instigated stay-at-home policy, 98,154 teenage girls across Kenya have been reported pregnant.

As at the end of 2019, according to one of the national dailies, 379,573 girls including 10 year olds, had conceived - unwanted pregnancies, lost their innocence and more importantly their dignity. Globally, according to the WHO, that number spikes to at least 10 million adolescent girls.

The root cause of this is lack of awareness and information to the young girls.

Here's proof as per the WHO:

1. Complications during pregnancy and childbirth, are the main causes of death among adolescent girls globally

2. Unsafe abortions contribute to lasting health complications, maternal deaths and lifetime complexities.

The Opportunity:

To provide a second chance at life for a demographic that has all odds stacked against them, help them plug meaningfully into the society as well as raise their sons and daughters to forever change the circumstances they were born into

Our solution is an educational tool that leverages on technologies such as artificial intelligence,  machine learning,  augmented reality and computer vision. The tool is meant to educate health workers on how to present maternal and newborn healthcare information to young teenage girls in a simple way which they can understand. It presents relatively complex information in a simple and interactive manner. In addition, it is used to monitor progress of the adolescent girls during pregnancy and analyze predictive models of areas that have high teenage pregnancy and suggest countermeasures for the same.It contains different modules, virtual tutors and a database of simplified content. Machine learning is also used to find out the best way to present information to a learner based on parameters such as age, geographic region and exposure.

Target Population:

Teenage girls who got unwanted pregnancies especially those from underprivileged households to whom the possibility of getting proper support during and after the pregnancy is remote.

The problem statement,solution and target population is well aligned to the challenge as it focuses on the following key dimensions:

• Expanding access to high quality health care for women. This is through the dissemination of expert verified information regarding maternal and newborn to under privileged communications through the system.
• Mental and emotional support of the  girls through the interactive features that come with the application. This helps to reduce stigma and give the girls a newly found hope.
• With the right information,  the girls can take care of themselves better hence reducing the risk of disease and high mortality rate.

The simplicity of our solution is what makes it unique. It breaks down complex concepts that are not easy to young adolescent girls. They can now learn and understand maternal and newborn healthcare concepts very easily. This will enable them to learn quickly, take care of themselves and improve their general health. This will reduce risk of diseases as well the high mortality rate.

The solution is powered by detach which comprises of artificial intelligence,  machine learning, computer vision and augmented reality. This kind of tech helps to simplify the concepts by presenting the information in an interactive way. It uses techniques such as graphics design and 3D imaging to render interactive graphics. This presents a suitable and interactive way of learning to the young adolescent girls.

The technologies listed have been successfully used in the educational sector. It has been used to present concepts like various science experiments and phenomena to young learners. Computer Graphics, video and animation have been used in describing processes like digestion which can relatively be complex to young learners. But due to the interactive and simplified way of how the concepts are presented, it becomes easier for them to understand. So in the same way P&M seeks to explain maternal and newborn healthcare concepts to young pregnant adolescent girls.

Once we train healthcare workers on how to present maternal and newborn healthcare information in a simplified way, we project that 60 % of the young adolescent girls will be able to understand how to take care of themselves during and after pregnancy. The emotional stress will also reduce by the same percentage. With the right information we project that maternal deaths will decrease by half in a period of one year and the mortality rate will decrease by 47 percent. Research done by various universities and research centres show that their is direct correlation between access to healthcare information and mortality rate. With improved access to quality healthcare information,  maternal deaths among teenager mums can decrease by 80 percent in just 5 years.

Our current target number of people is 500. In the next one year we target 10,000 people while in the next 5 years we target about 100,000 people

Our goal is to provide quality healthcare, support and  information to teenage mothers in Kenya and beyond.

To equip healthcare workers and community leaders with skills necessary to present maternal and newborn healthcare information in a simplified form.

To have impacted 5 countries by the end of 5 years.

To reduce diseases and high mortality death that can prevented through acquisition of right healthcare information.

Mentorship and technical support that would aid us to scale our project further.

Financial challenges to hire skilled manpower for the project.

Marketing and product distribution. We require expertise to aid in solution marketing and acquiring key resources.

By looking for industry mentors and partners to assist in product development and implementation.

Crowd sourcing funds from friends and other well wishers to finance the project.

Form partnerships with marketing agencies and other key players who can bring in their expertise to the project.

Shannon Mujera-C.E.O

Irvine Lumumba- C.O.O

Members of our team are passionate entrepreneurs who have a background in the engineering field. They have participated in various social innovation challenges and have won a number of great accolades for their amazing contribution in the field. Most importantly they are driven individuals who are passionate about solving world problems and making a difference in the world. This makes them the perfect team to implement this solution.

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Segments:

Beneficiary: - teenage girls with unintended pregnancies, we will also teach them vocational skills after childbirth as a fallback plan

Customer: - NGO's and civil organizations seeking data and consultancy services

Value Proposition: 

Social: - a second go at life for teenage girls who lack psychosocial, community support and are at risk of death when they get pregnant at a young ege

To the Customer:- raw but structured data and information on effects, causes, trends and mitigation strategies relating to teenage pregnancies for better policy making, enforcement and concerted effort.

Impact measures:- our impact will be measured by: reduction in teenage girls' death due to early pregnancy; number of teenage girls going back to school to improve their life situation; reduction of stigma against teenage girls and switching community reaction to proactive measures to save the girls

Intervention & Channels:- this will be a service to teenage girls and will be delivered through community leaders to encourage broader community uptake. 

Cost Structure:- bulk of the funds will go to the development of instructional material for the community leaders as well as giving the girls vocational skills

Revenue:- our revenues come from the data collected and sold to key stakeholders for information and mitigation

Surplus:- any profits arising from this will be reinvested back into the program to ensure we reach one more girl and save one more community until we have broken even and are running steady

Grants and donations will help fund our runway through the pilot and product market fit stage, this should take about 6 months to have a commendable pool of both data and experience to draw insights from

We will then embark on rapid development and value addition by both up-skilling the girls as well as refining our key product - anonymized data which will be useful in informing stakeholders and leaders on means and ways of mitigating the risk of adolescent pregnancies. At this point we will running to break even, hopefully by the third/fourth year of operation

We are also looking at additional revenue streams including helping the girls set up ventures once they are of age that we can co-own with them and effectively earn from as well

We are applying to Solve because we understand the value, commitment and passion of the Solve Community to solve world problems. These are the same values we share and we would like to get support of like minded individuals who share in the same goal. We would also want to get access to various key partners to aid in mentorship of how to progress on with our project. Also, we would love to get assistance on how to scale up our project so that it can not only be useful in our region, but impact the whole world. We have also applied to Solve to get assistance in marketing,  distribution and obtaining key resources that are necessary for the implementation of the project.

we would like to get partners to assist in :

• product distribution,  to not only one location but multiple locations.
• Assistance in developing a suitable business model as the project is still in the conceptual stage.
• Exposure and networking with relevant industry partners and key stakeholders.

We would like to partner with organisations such as innovation hubs to assist in product development,  world health organisation (WHO) to get information on best maternal and newborn healthcare practices, startup accelerator programs to scale up our solution faster and the MIT faculty to test and develop our MVP.

P&M (Pregnancy and Me) is a social innovation that improves maternal and newborn health in low and middle income countries. It focuses on empowering women and young girls reproductive and sexual health. Most girl young adolescents from the age of 10 to 16 in low and middle income countries are at risk of getting pregnant.This year in Kenya alone, about 200,000 young teenage girls have gotten pregnant in the last four months alone. This poses a  challenge, as most of them have little to no knowledge on maternal and newborn healthcare. The lack of knowledge on appropriate guidelines to be followed during pregnancy causes high mortality rate that could easily be preventable. Maternal health concepts are relatively complex for the young adolescents to understand. This creates a need to come up with a simplified way to present the information to the young adolescents. The information should be in created and communicated in a way that young adolescents can understand. P&M seeks to solve this problem by developing a simplified and interactive tutor application that will present and communicate maternal and newborn health in a way the young adolescents can understand. It does this by leveraging on current technology such as computer vision, augmented reality and software engineering. The solution will come a long away in reducing the high mortality rate and making quality healthcare accessible to all. Our team will use the Women Prize award to scale up on our geographical coverage to reach and support more girls and women.

P&M (Pregnancy and Me) is a social innovation that improves maternal and newborn health in low and middle income countries.  The objective of the solution  is to equip community workers with skills on how to present maternal and newborn healthcare information  to young adolescents. Most young adolescents girls from age 10 to 16 in low and middle income countries are at risk of getting pregnant. A challenge arises, as most of them have little to no knowledge on maternal healthcare. Bearing in mind, they are  young and dont understand the relatively complex information about pregnancy, a need arises of coming up with a simplified way to present the information to them. The information should be in created and communicated in a way that they can understand. Healthworkers must therefore be trained on how to present such information to them. P&M solves this problem by a simplified and interactive application that  presents maternal and newborn health in a simple way. It does this by leveraging on technology like computer vision and augmented reality.  Health workers must thus be trained on the use of the application to assist them in presenting the information to the young adolescents.The solution will aid in reducing the high mortality rate and making quality healthcare accessible to all. Our team will use the Health Workforce Innovation award to set up more virtual training platforms so as to equip the health workers and community leaders with skills on presenting maternal and newborn healthcare information to the young adolescents.

P&M (Pregnancy and Me) is a social impact solution that focuses on improving maternal and newborn health in low and middle income countries. Most of young adolescents girls from the age of 10 to 16 in low and middle income countries are at risk of getting pregnant.This year in Kenya alone, it is estimated that about 200,000 young teenage girls have gotten pregnant in the last four months alone. This poses a great challenge, as most of them have little to no knowledge on maternal and newborn healthcare. The lack of knowledge on appropriate guidelines to be followed during pregnancy causes high mortality rate that could easily be preventable. Maternal health concepts are relatively complex for the young adolescents to understand. This creates a need to come up with a more simplified way to present the information to the young adolescents. The information on maternal and newborn healthcare should be in created and communicated in a way that young adolescents can understand. P&M seeks to solve this problem by developing a standard, simplified and interactive tutor application that will be able to present and communicate maternal and newborn health in a way the young adolescents can understand. It does this by leveraging on current technology such as artificial intelligence,  machine learning, computer vision, augmented reality and software engineering. Machine learning and Data Science models will be used to monitor progress of the adolescents girls during pregnancy and after child birth. It will also be used as an assessment measure to test the effectiveness of the solution based on the understanding of the concepts by the young adolescents. In addition, it can be used to do a predictive modeling to show areas in which there is high teenage pregnancy rates and suggest countermeasures to be taken. Out team will use the AI for humanity award to hire skilled personnel who can leverage on the vast generated data we will collect and come up with insights that can help us advance our solutions even further.

P&M (Pregnancy and Me) is a social impact solution that focuses on improving maternal and newborn health in low and middle income countries. Most of young adolescents girls from the age of 10 to 16 in low and middle income countries are at risk of getting pregnant.This year in Kenya alone, it is estimated that about 200,000 young teenage girls have gotten pregnant in the last four months alone. This poses a great challenge, as most of them have little to no knowledge on maternal and newborn healthcare. The lack of knowledge on appropriate guidelines to be followed during pregnancy causes high mortality rate that could easily be preventable. Maternal health concepts are relatively complex for the young adolescents to understand. This creates a need to come up with a more simplified way to present the information to the young adolescents. The information on maternal and newborn healthcare should be in created and communicated in a way that young adolescents can understand. P&M seeks to solve this problem by developing a standard, simplified and interactive tutor application that will be able to present and communicate maternal and newborn health in a way the young adolescents can understand. It does this by leveraging on current technology such as computer vision, augmented reality and software engineering. The solution will come a long away in reducing the high mortality rate and making quality healthcare accessible to all. Our team will use the Bill and Melinda gates award to scale up on our content creation and to leverage on more technologies that can aid in the simplification of the presentation of maternal and newborn healthcare information.