maymay - mHealth for Maternal and Child Health

maymay ("mommy") - Myanmar’s first mobile app for maternal and child health

Eight women in Myanmar die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal care. Myanmar has the second-highest infant mortality rate and the highest under-5 mortality rate in Southeast Asia. In rural areas, where 70% of Myanmar’s population resides, maternal and infant mortality rates are higher due to inaccessibility to adequate health services such as well-trained health workers. Myanmar also has high rates of infectious diseases, such as Tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria.  By increasing access to accurate health information and services, we can reduce maternal and infant mortality rates and prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

Koe Koe Tech’s popular mobile health app maymay (Burmese for “Mommy”) provides accurate health information on a variety of topics, including child and maternal health, reproductive health, nutrition, infectious diseases, and non-communicable diseases,  presented to its users in various interactive and engaging ways.

Current features include a social feed (similar to that of Facebook) with various health content, quizzes, and daily push notifications (timed to the stage of pregnancy or age of child) and three weekly messages. The dashboard in maymay includes features to search for Population Services International (PSI) affiliated  doctors based on user location, a directory of hospitals and clinics, chatrooms for pregnant women and new mothers, a messenger chat feature where users can ask PSI doctors health questions, and the Akhaya gender-based violence hotline. All of this is packaged in a contemporary, attractive, user friendly and culturally appropriate layout which provides an engaging user experience.

With official approval from  the Ministry of Health and Sports for its content and its distribution in health facilities across the country, maymay was initially beta launched in 2014. Since then, Koe Koe Tech has continued to add new features to maymay to better address the needs of Myanmar people. For example, some versions of maymay have included specific content relevant to women living in IDP camps in war conflicted zones in the northern states. maymay will soon include an essential nutritional health pack for mothers and infants for the first 1,000 days and a nutritional hub for health workers. In the near future, Koe Koe Tech plans to add a referral system for doctors in the maymay app.

Our maymay software is built to be customizable, enabling us to easily tailor our app features and content to the specific needs of our target audience across varying demographics. Wherever healthcare is inaccessible due to workforce shortage, high costs from lack of insurance, or  poor infrastructure, maymay provides its users with access to timely, gender-sensitive, and professional maternal and child health information, empowering users to make positive behavioral changes that will improve the long-term health and wellbeing of mother and child.

KKT develops software for the local Myanmar context. Although Myanmar has an 80% smartphone usage rate, digital literacy of the general population is low. Therefore, maymay is designed to have a very simple user interface, with clear instructions on how to use the app, visible navigational components, legible typography, and engaging graphics. Our software is cost-effective because it is made to be easily customizable in order to meet the needs of our end-users. maymay has features that can easily be added or removed based on our target audience, which has ranged from mothers, health workers, to women in IDP camps.

In a country with poor health infrastructure, with shortages of and insufficient medical facilities and equipment, health professionals, and available health services, there are many barriers to accessing health information and services, especially for those that live in rural areas. With maymay, pregnant women, mothers, guardians, and young adults can easily obtain the health-related information they need, no matter where they live. They will also have access to information on doctors, clinics, and hotlines. maymay also has both online and offline access making it convenient and easy for its users to obtain any information or services they may need.

Over the next 12 months, KKT plans to increase the number of maymay users by expanding its content to reach younger women between ages 20 and 34, health workers (including community health workers, auxiliary midwives, and midwives)  in rural, underserved populations in Myanmar, as well as urban areas. In addition to rolling out maymay to Bangladesh and other countries, we are also planning to distribute the app into IDP camps located in war-conflicted zones in Myanmar. To make our app more accessible to users across varying regions, maymay will be translated into new languages.

In the next three to five years, KKT will continue to improve maymay’s software design and add new features and content to scale its impact. New features we plan to add include an SMS feature, an online shopping platform for maternal and child health products, and a feature for doctor/clinic referral and appointments. We will also be translating maymay content into different languages to roll out maymay across different geographical markets, including Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Australia. To reach more users across Myanmar, KKT will be hiring marketing staff across 10 states/regions in Myanmar.

One-third of our users download maymay via Google Play, and a further one-third  through Zapya, a bluetooth file sharing app. KKT’s marketing team visits key distribution points (such as hospitals and phone stores) to distribute the app via Zapya. As an incentive for users to share the app, KKT offers a 100 kyat referral bonus (offered as a phone credit to the referrer), which accounts for another one-third of users. maymay is also distributed through our network of NGO partners by embedding use of maymay into their existing programs.

maymay has over 110,000 registered users and 1.3 million monthly user engagements, and the average screen views per user per month is 130 which is comparable to Facebook. The Akhaya gender based violence hotline on maymay receives 200 calls per month. Pregnant women and mothers are able to chat with PSI doctors and are able to engage with other mothers via the chat forum. Users can opt to receive weekly messages and reminders from maymay. KKT is about to start a 2 year randomised controlled trial to measure the impact of maymay on users in peri-urban Yangon.

In 12 months Koe Koe Tech aims to reach up 300,000 users in Myanmar and over 50,000 users in Bangladesh within our target audience. Many pregnancy and maternal-related deaths and under-one infant deaths are caused by diseases and incidences that are preventable. Therefore, we aim to increase access to accurate information on maternal and reproductive health, non-communicable diseases, and nutrition, and access to doctors, clinics, and hotlines. In the next three to five years, we expect maymay to have expanded to other countries, reaching millions of users that do not have access to adequate health information and services.

Koe Koe Tech deeply cares about Myanmar and its people. Over 90% of our employees are local and 70% are female, which shows that we have deep ties to the communities we serve, and we have experience of what works for Myanmar and what doesn’t.

We have a talented team of Myanmar engineers (Android, web and back-end developers) and designers to develop software with user-friendly and visually engaging interfaces, an experienced ethnographer who conducts user-testing and in-person qualitative interviews, data scientists to analyze key performance indicators from our databases, and an enthusiastic sales and marketing team to distribute our apps.

Currently, KKT receives a majority of its revenue from grants. Our advertising revenues cover one-third of maymay’s monthly running costs. Advertising revenue for maymay is low because the audience is generally low-income women. At 300,000 users, maymay will be fully self-sustaining, and revenue raised beyond this will be re-invested to allow KKT to update and upgrade without grant funding. KKT is planning to add a shopping platform on maymay to collect transaction charges, which will also generate revenue.

Koe Koe Tech has developed software to address other needs in Myanmar, such as MyanKhon (“Fast Tax”), Hospital Management Information Systems (HMIS), and Clinic Management Information Systems(CMIS), which will gain revenue from user subscriptions and other associated fees.

Koe Koe Tech is applying to Solve for its vast network of partners, ranging from non-governmental organizations, social enterprises, non-profits, to entrepreneurs, in hopes of gaining technical expertise, mentorship, partnerships, and investment opportunities to scale maymay’s impact.

A key barrier that Koe Koe Tech faces is the distribution of maymay because  a majority of Myanmar people cannot access maymay via Google Play Store (only 6% of Myanmar’s population uses email), and neither are they technically proficient enough to enable third-party app installation on their phones. Koe Koe Tech currently distributes maymay through bluetooth file-sharing via marketing staff and NGOs in its network. KKT therefore requires funding to hire more staff, particularly in our sales and marketing team.