ayubo.life

We are here to create healthier nations :)

Globally 42 Million early deaths are caused by non-communicable diseases and half of this is shared between cardiovascular disease and diabetes. 

We want to reduce this number by 25% in next five years. 

We do this by making living healthy - easy, affordable and fun for all.

We engage people who seem healthy and motivate them to take preventative screening with instant analysis, predict future risks, help users set health & wellness goals, motivate and guide them with a digitally connected team of experts (A doctor, dietician and a fitness expert) and reward them for engagement and outcomes. 

We work with corporates to create healthier workforces, convinced insurance to make wellness programs 'claimable' and work with Ministry of Health to take this model to bottom layers of the society funded through corporate sponsorships. 

We are active in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. 

Problem

21 Million early deaths are reported globally every year due to cardiovascular and diabetes related conditions. We believe that most of this is avoidable through early detection and life style modification. 

Solution

We want preventative screening to be super cheap (less than USD 10), easy and accessible with immediate interpretation of results, prediction of future risks and suggest guidance. 

We want insurance companies to recognize this report and allow their policy holders to subscribe to outcome oriented guidance programs on ayubo.life app. Same with corporates. We tap in to 

Each program has a specific goal (Blood pressure, Cholesterol, Blood sugar, Weight, Fitness, Stress, Sleep ) and span 3 months with app based guidance and access to a team of a doctor, dietician & a fitness expert via chat/video based consultation. (plus a mental health expert if the goal is on stress or sleep) 

Positive impact 

Early detection and gamification has helped more than 1,000 people embraced a better lifestyle. 

Three step process for better health,

1. Preventative screening

We've simplified data points we need for initial assessment. We've made this standardized screening available at companies, carried out at homes, available at pharmacies - soon and best, get it done for less then USD 10. We provide instant analysis to the user with risk prediction on future cardiovascular and diabetes risks and propose required action. 

2. Analysis and goal setting

Looking at screening data, ayubo.life app will propose a goal to the user. User could select a proposed goal or request for a video based consultation with a doctor for further discussion. 

Users will select one goal from - weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, fitness, stress or sleep. 

3. Guided plans to drive an outcome

Next users, pick a plan. In most cases this is based on agreement with their company or insurance company. Each plan is for 3 months and focus on one goal as above. Each user is assigned a team of a doctor, dietician and a fitness expert (a mental health expert if the goal is either stress or sleep). Marketplace of product and services gives greater choice. 

Based on engagement and achievement, users earn points. 

We focus mainly on two groups,

1. Corporate employees (Private sector)

Based on data we've seen this group shows more adverse health & wellness against national averages. This could be driven on urbanisation, work pressure and life style choices. 

Our services are procured by corporates. Now we've conviced two insurance companies to allow employees to use the in-patient allocation to claim cost of wellness plans with ayubo.life.

Apart from engaging the users on our program, we help each corporate create a wellness conducive culture. This is done with reward laden wellness challenges, healthy snack menus and other guidelines provided to organisations. 

Example : An IT company of 650 people committed to our program. 187 employees got engaged, 165 committed to a goal and 65 showed progress. 

2. Public sector employees and general public

This is the underserved group. We get private sector to sponsor the screening and analysis part of the program and guide users with risks to public healthy life centers - which are heavily under utilised. 

Example : With setup done at Ministry of Health, 400 state employees have gone through screening with 12% of them getting quick guidance to address impending risks. 

based on success of the model, funding is available for 25 locations with 5 locations identified. Most prestigious location will be the presidential secretariat. 

While corporate engagements continue during covid19 challenges, public sector implementations are on hold. 

As seen with COVID19, when a pandemic hits, the best defense is a strong immune system. At a population level, this is not something that can be built in a hurry. 

Addressing NCDs will release Millions of dollars from current health systems to be allocated for other conditions and to be better prepared for pandemics. 

Having an easy to use, fun digital system (app, web, SMS) that connects people can be quickly configured to advice people on best practices in facing a new situation. It took us only a week to launch COVID19 care program in March 2020. 

While we are a revenue generating entity that was around for 3 years, it's only during last 12 months we fine tuned the solution and processes to be able to deliver a health & wellness outcome as well as address economics to some extent. 

Through partnerships with insurance companies in Sri Lanka and a partnership in Bangladesh with a telco and an insurance company we have access to 5 million filtered user profiles. 

We are in the process of raising pre-A in Singapore and Bangladesh. Given the current travel restrictions we've decided to raise USD 500k as a Seed 2(bridge) with interest received already for 50%. 

If we are selected we'll leverage your network and resources to,

1. Make the screening process a 'self test' that can be done individually with no manning required. Currently we need at least one nurse to draw blood. This involves mechatronics related development. 

This will help us increase screening net substantially within public sector. 

2. Improve the risk prediction. This requires AI/ML and access to research. 

3. Make the guided programs even more personalise and more digitally driven that'll help us scale the solution better. This requires AI/ML and intelligent bots. 

We've taken a difficult problem to solve - to create healthier nations. 

It's a complex problem and the solution is not a 'single click' solution like uber , UberEats or AirBnb. 

We need users to come on board while they are healthy (or seemingly so), convince them to give us more data points for our risk engine and then keep the user sufficiently engaged to drive an outcome. 

Two key challenges,

1. Keeping the user engaged - we use education, testimonials and mostly gamification for this. 

2. We need efficiency to deliver economic viability. Our target is for one of our expert teams to manage a group of 500 users effectively ie drive an outcome. Currently, we are under 200. 

Digitalhealth platform we are building is different to most telehealth platforms. We facilitate a 'team' to drive an outcome for an individual. The backend tools, dashboards, apps are designed with this purpose in mind. Most telehealth platforms connect one-on-one to solve a problem for that moment. An early stage diabetes patient may need to see a consultant, medication, may have many medical questions answered, needs guidance from a dietician and engage in fitness activities that suit him/her. This is what we strive to deliver seamlessly. 

We set KPIs for our expert teams on outcomes they deliver.

At least one feature

Current : 70,000

Next 12 months : 250,000

In 3 years : 1 Mn 

Full outcome driven program in private corporates

Next 12 months  : 20,000

In 3 years : 250,000

Public sector employees and public

Next 12 months : 20,000

Next 3 years : 1 Million

1. Number of people impacted.

This'll be number of people who have made a positive change in one of the seven contributory risk factors,

1. Weight

2. Blood pressure

3. Cholesterol 

4. Blood sugar

5. Fitness

6. Stress

7. Sleep

2. Number of people on an outcome based program

Full time payroll 8

Tech team on loan 5

Experts on retainers for product development input 4

Our co-founders bring 50+ years of tech, business and healthcare experience. 

Co-founder : Chandima has 25+ years of experience in applying technology to solve problems. Last corporate he payed was at Hemas Holdings PLC as the Chief Digital Officer leading IT, Digital and innovation teams across the group. He managed the startup incubator as well. 

Chandima comes with a track record of conceptualising and marketing award winning tech products ahead of its time. 

Co-founder : Dr Chamila has 25+ years of health administration in UK and Sri Lanka with great links to entire healthcare system and excellent in execution. 

Prashant our head of sales & marketing, launched a Netflix competitor in Sri Lanka with an innovative approach before joining ayubo.life. He is one fo Sri Lanka's best football referees. 

Chathurani our Operations Manager led a network of international wellness centers before joining ayubo.life. 

We have fitness experts, dieticians, mental health experts, medical experts both from academia and professional bodies to help us innovate backed by science. 

Our co-founder pair is male and female.

Within our small team we have representation of all ethnicities and religions of Sri Lanka. 

We have strong ethics around being an equal opportunity employer.

We believe that we are attempting to solve a problem that's worth solving. 

If we succeed and scale, we can give a better quality of life to tens of millions of people, their families, better productivity to their work places and save millions of dollars to countries and make nations more resilient to future pandemics. 

It's not an easy problem to solve and we are open for continuous learning. 

We do recogniszed that we cannot crack each part of this problem ourselves and we are open for partnerships. 

We want to understand and access best technology and minds around. We want to go this journey together with others who believe in the mission. 

We believe this program can bring all these for us to move forward faster. 

1. We would like to access best minds in non-communicable disease management space, related AI/ML experts.

2. Board advisors with business model, insurance, fund raising expertise who are excited about the problem we are solving

3. IoT and AI that helps us capture more data points and making sense out of them. 

4. Explore other bio-markers, especially non-invasive ones, that'll help us to screen even more people. We are talking to research groups who are trying to do this via a facial expression analysis, voice analysis,etc. 

5. We would like to have access to behavioural scientists to improve user engagement and outcomes. 

6. Technologists who can help us shape our tech strategy to achieve multiple objectives of security, performance, integrations and cost. 

1. Mechatronics - maker spaces

- Product design companies who could design a 'self check station' that's easy and safe to use with no manning. 

3. Investor networks

- Investors and connectors with an interest in healthtech

4. Clinical experts

- Experts focussed on non-communicable diseases

- Expert focussed on other areas of diseases who maybe looking for a platform to deploy long term - outcome oriented care. 

5. Research organizations 

- Studies on non-communicable diseases, effectiveness of different plans at different stages

- Behaviour and motivational studies for life style changing. 

A very high percentage of workforce involved in Sri Lankan (and Bangladesh) export industries are women. 

We already have a program specifically addressing needs of apparel worker force, young females. We want to improve these products and engage with these users better. 

An empathetic chat bot, trained on relevent issues is our dream. Need to be in local languages. that adds to the challenge. 

If we win this prize entire prize money will be deployed to accelerate this work. 

What we are doing is all about data. 

We know where we need AI but we are at early stages. 

AI will help us do three things,

1. Do better risk predications - better in terms of accuracy as well as being able to predict with incomplete data sets. 

2. Create personalized guidance programs to achieve a particular goal

3. Scale much faster. Need to support local languages though. 

Our success in using AI will be a factor in how successful we'll be. 

If we get this prize money that'll help us accelerate our development work and access global experts.