MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

Mivera: Community Based Wellness Support

One-line solution summary:

Create small and effective wellness based communities by leveraging a family's own social network and preferred communication apps.

Pitch your solution.

Social media is a powerful tool in connecting people to resources, but is also the source of misinformation. During pandemics, it is essential to get high quality resources to people and provide meaningful social connections during lockdowns.

Mivera's is building a managed, private social network which communicates over SMS/Whatsapp/Signal. The members add to their network a small group of trusted friends, neighbors and relatives who the member normally turns to for support. Mivera will send daily prompts to members to assess needs and use both humans and AI to connect these needs with the right person in their network. Mivera can also send geographically relevant, vetted resources and alerts to the networks.

By leveraging hardware and software technology, which most of the world already carries in their pocket, we can truly supercharge communities to provide care to each other during a crisis.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

Mivera aims to address loneliness and unmet needs in populations that are especially vulnerable during emergencies and pandemics, like older adults living in their own homes.

In the U.S. 24% of older adults report some degree of loneliness or social isolation and 18.8% of adults over 75 report difficulties in instrumental activities of daily living(IADL). During this pandemic, many older adults were not able to get services to help them with IADL needs such as cooking, cleaning or transportation. If the IADL needs remain undetected and unresolved, it may lead to chronic issues and expensive formal care.

The risk of cognitive decline is highly correlated with instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) impairment. Social isolation is believed to be a strong contributing factor to cognitive decline as well, with studies showing that social isolation can lead to up to a 50% increased risk of developing dementia.

It is important to determine if engineering of social interaction in social bubbles during pandemics and other health security threats can help older adults manage to address IADL needs and return to independence after the pandemic or if persistence of needs can serve as an early warning of physical and cognitive decline.

What is your solution?

Mivera makes a software which aims to create a care coordination and resource provider platform for social bubbles.

1. Families can form a bubble of upto 15 persons using the web-app. Each person's name, phone number and availability preferences are captured by the system.

2. Voice, SMS or WhatsApp based check-ins and reminders can be created by the bubble members for each other. For every check-in and 3 bubble members can be designated as emergency contacts. A "HELP" call or check-in will trigger the contact tree, and the person in need can get help in a timely manner from people in their own bubble.

3. A recommendation engine will curate and provide vetted information and resources to families in need such as medical care, in-home care, food, amublances etc.

4. The questions asked during the check-in will gather intelligence about IADL and social isolation. The system will nudge bubble members to help based on their availability and preferences to try to reduce caregiver strain.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

This solution is targeted at community dwelling non-institutionalized older adults. By 2030, nearly 20% of the U.S. population will be over 65. 90% of them wish to age independently, but as the COVID-19 crisis has shown us, lack of access to goods and services and timely care can greatly affect this population. The solution also aims to help remote caregivers, i.e. children or family that live over an hour away from their aging parent.

The goal is to help manage and coordinate care for older adults and meet their instrumental needs within the social bubble.

We have spoken to 150+ families and are running a pilot with 30 families to understand how older adults use technology, how they respond to nudges delivered over SMS or WhatsApp. We are currently testing out the check-in and reminder functions and we have received a lot of positive feedback from families in our pilot.

We are working to improve our UX to meet the needs of this population, to help them stay healthy and independent even in crises where access to goods and services is impacted.

Our current product is accessible at https://miveratech.com

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Combat loneliness, stress, depression, and other mental health impacts of disease outbreaks.

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

Our world today is rapidly aging and medical improvements mean people will live longer. As we saw during the pandemic, social isolation was a tremendous burden, for this group. Another impact was an increase in unmet IADL needs of older adults. Given that social isolation and IADL needs are both strongly corelated to onset of cognitive disabilities and physical illness, Mivera's technology aims to make it simpler to support the social and IADL needs of older adults. We will leverage AI/ML approaches to tailor nudges, prompts and provide access to goods and services and enable independent living.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Pleasanton, CA, USA

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Pilot: An organization deploying a tested product, service, or business model in at least one community.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

We are currently testing Mivera with a group of 30 families whose parents or grandparents are living in their own home. The older adults are 65-90 years old and are located in U.S and India.

Our current pilot is focused on understanding feasibility of a mobile phone based system and improve the UX based on needs of this population.

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Sanyukta Bhide- CEO