Mila's Keeper

A cold storage device which empowers working, breastfeeding moms to store expressed milk safely up to 24 hours.

Breastfeeding is undisputedly the best public health solution to ensure cognitive and physically healthy babies, offering the most nutritious and cost-effective food in the world. Exclusive breastfeeding rates around the world, however are negatively correlated with moms who return to work.  While the phenomenon of financially independent moms is a positive trend for her family and the economy, the demands from the working environment take a toll on her ability to maintain breastfeeding.  To add, female participation in the labor force is a global upward trend so the problem will continue to persist or worsen.  

Millions of public dollars are being spent each year on promoting and educating the importance of breastfeeding, but very little, only from the private sector, is being spent on accommodating moms with actual breast-pumping accessories, which will help her succeed.  Safe storage of her pumped milk is one challenge which can terminate a mother's ability to maintain breastfeeding while away from her baby.  

Mila's Keeper, a public Benefit Corporation, will help millions of working moms in the countries of lowest breastfeeding rates, to maintain her breastfeeding routine by storing her pumped milk effectively for 12-24 hours, especially in workplaces or during commutes where refrigeration is inaccessible.  This way, moms can continue to participate in the labor force, without sacrificing giving the best to her baby.

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The solution is innovative because it is a new application of existing technology.

Technology, albeit low-tech, is integral to the solution because this is what drives the functionality and effectiveness of the cold storage unit.

The goals over the next 12 months is to have the product manufactured, ready for market, and generating sales in the USA, where breastfeeding rates are the lowest in the world. We will also start measuring baseline of breastfeeding rates of mothers who use our product.

The vision over the next three to five years is to prove that with Mila's Keeper was effective in being able to help extend breastfeeding rates of working women in the US.  Then we would like to scale to emerging markets, particularly targeting mothers in countries that are reaching middle-income status and where breastfeeding rates are rapidly decreasing due to industrialization.  Asia, for example is a region in which p labor participation rates are above 50% and exclusive breastfeeding rates in urban settings are dramatically decreasing.

For the US market, digital marketing will be the key methodology to reach customers and beneficiaries.  In addition, community parent groups, employers and government will also be key partners to reach mothers.

For emerging markets, the key methodology to reach mothers will be through employers and brick and mortar retailers.  Government and local community groups will also be important partners.

Mila's Keeper is currently in PROTOTYPE stage so we are not yet affecting mothers and their babies.  To understand the potential, however, please see below.

In the US alone, there are 2.3 million working moms per year or 60% of all mothers with children under 12 months.

While there are no reliable estimates of working mothers with children under 12 months in emerging markets, the ILO reports that women in emerging countries represent 45% of the labor force. 

The goal is to affect a minimum population of 15,000 mothers in the first 12 months.  We will be empowering moms to participate in the workforce without sacrificing the best nutrition and care for their babies.  

By 3 years, we hope to reach a minimum of 1 million moms globally, in the North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia regions.  We also aim to have sufficient data to prove that Mila's Keeper enabled them to extend their breastfeeding rates while working.

As the founder, I have a combined 20 years experience in growing and streamlining for-profit businesses in health, and in working in the international development space for 13+ years through UNICEF.  I am a global health professional and a mom, so I have a very clear understanding of the needs of the target market.

Other important skillsets contributed from the team include expertise in mechanical engineering, thermodynamics, digital marketing and solid financial acumen.

The revenue model in North America is direct, online sales.  In emerging markets, we will be working a combination of online direct, sales through employers and brick and mortar retailers.

According to our financial projections, we will be cash positive and profitable by year 2. It is a sustainable model as our net margins will never fall below a healthy 35%.

The mission of our company is to ultimately improve the health of moms and their babies globally through breastfeeding. Solve provides us a credible, global platform to showcase our innovation.

We believe that through Solve's network of organizations, influencers and innovators, we can receive expert help which will improve the impact our product will have on working mothers and their babies globally.  Finally, we believe that the heart of success is in partnerships.  By being part of Solve's community, we will be able to find partners with whom we can ultimately achieve our goal, more effectively and faster!

We believe that as we enter emerging markets, Solve will be able to help us outreach more effectively to global partners, to reach our target working moms.  Having that international credibility of MIT behind us, will help catapult us on another level!