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How UNICEF wants to transform the lives of mothers and children with wearables?

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Sonal Desai
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MUMBAI, INDIA: In a bid to transform the lives of mothers and children, especially in the developing world, UNICEF will use wearables.

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The company has tied up with ARM and global product strategy and design firm Frog on a Wearables for Good challenge to generate ideas for new and innovative devices that tackle maternal and child health needs in emerging economies.

The partnership will focus on enabling UNICEF to provide faster and more comprehensive help to children coping with the effects of mass urbanization and increased social and economic divides.

Initial deliverables in the multi year partnership include:

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* Community development: Running over six months, the challenge invites developers, designers, community partners and problem-solvers to design a wearable device that offers a cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable solution to pressing maternal, newborn or child health problems.

* ARM will work alongside UNICEF’s network of innovation labs and country offices to identify and scale up pilot projects that demonstrate the potential to be used at a national level. Over the next year, they will identify the most impactful solutions being used or in trials across the UNICEF network and invest to deliver them wherever they are needed.

* In the long term, the partnership will conduct research to evaluate and promote market opportunities in developing countries. With the findings, they will outline the business case for investing in solutions for mobile financial services, identity, transportation, learning and wearable/sensor technology. The joint goal is to build momentum for globally co-created and scalable technologies that attract commercial investment.

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It must be noted that the Wearables for Good design challenge competition panel will assess the entries on several levels including product and service design that disrupts or improves the status quo, sustainability of technology and potential impact at scale.

Entrants will be guided by the Use Case Handbook created by UNICEF and Frog. The handbook outlines the challenges that need to be addressed, as well as considerations, context and principles for good design.

Two winners will be selected at the end of the design challenge. Each winner will receive $15,000 funding alongside incubation and mentorship support from ARM and Frog.

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“We need to innovate with social purpose in order to overcome the barriers of time, distance and lack of information that prevent millions of children from surviving and realizing their potential,” said Erica Kochi, Co-lead, UNICEF Innovation. “By working together with ARM we improve our ability to develop new technologies that impact children and help them grow up healthy, educated and able to positively contribute to their families, communities and wider economies.”

“Technology should be used to create opportunity for all; improving child health, education and prospects, and access to it should not be governed by economic status or geography,” said Simon Segars, CEO, ARM.

“Today, wearable technologies are primarily focused on applications such as fitness and the quantified self,” said Denise Gershbein, Executive Creative Director, Frog.

“However, there are countless opportunities for wearable and sensor technology to make more of an impact in emerging markets, particularly in the next wave of social impact development. With the Wearables for Good challenge we hope to foster dialogue among new partners and increase cross-discipline innovation.”

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