Mwana

Mwana is an SMS-based conversational AI that provides mothers with medically-verified support during pregnancy.

Mwana is an app to provide information and breastfeeding support for mothers. Breastfeeding works best when mothers have a nurturing community to help them work through problems, but due to poverty and poor healthcare infrastructure, Nigerian mothers don’t have this. Instead, Mwana will act as a virtual lactation counselor, helping mothers track their breastfeeding, providing pump reminders, and giving them valuable tips on latching, nutrition, milk production, and formula harms. The app will be hosted entirely over SMS and the content will be translated into the local indigenous language (Hausa) in order to make it accessible to the mothers. It will be powered by conversational AI technology trained to solve maternal health problems. 

1 in every 8 children in Nigeria dies before they reach their 5th birthday or 118 of every 1,000 live births. To put that in perspective, the US has a child mortality rate of less than 1 in every 100. After vaccines, exclusive breastfeeding is the best way to tackle the crisis. It makes sense: the mother's antibodies travel to the child through her breastmilk. It increases the newborn chance of survival by 6x. Plus, it doesn't require any travel or money, and almost every mother can produce breastmilk. But even though it's so simple, mothers aren't doing it. Breastfeeding is difficult and without proper healthcare infrastructure mothers easily justify giving up, leading to high child mortality rates.

Our solution serves the vulnerable women and children of rural Nigeria, and eventually the world. Upon discussion with locals, we noticed that many of the humanitarian aid efforts and health interventions are targeted towards urban areas due to the ease of distribution, making these individuals incredibly underserved. Luckily, due to mobile technology, we are able to reach these individuals, bringing them a crucial health intervention. The solution will address their inhumane child mortality rates and allow more children to continue to adulthood.

We have had conversations with over 50 mothers about their individual situations and needs. Moreover, we have partnered with FAYOHI, an organization on the ground in Jigawa State, Nigeria to contextualize the situation and provide feedback they've learned from their previous interventions. To ensure our content is medically accurate and in line with cultural beliefs, we've sourced a group of medical experts from the surrounding region to review and approve our medical tips. Moreover, in partnership with the antenatal clinic of Ladoke Akintola University, we've been able to create focus groups of mothers to test our product, train our AI model, and create iterable feedback. 

To date, we have built out the preliminary AI model and content associated with our app. We are currently testing our model with 30 mothers in a focus group. This testing will also provide the AI with more samples to train and become ready for our pilot. Once our testing is complete, we have partnered with the Nigerian Ministry of Health and FAYOHI to distribute our product on the ground in the Pilot phase of our project.

Our solution relies on AI and SMS technology. Our AI interprets the mother's inquiry and provides them with the proper medical tip from our curated database. If the AI is unable to answer the inquiry, the tip is sent through our ticketing system to a medically-trained agent who will answer. This communication between mother and Mwana happens over SMS. Moreover, our system also records relevant information about the mother in order to provide her with timely tips i.e. delivery tips at 30 weeks. The mother's information is collected in compliance with Nigerian data privacy laws.

Currently, we serve the 30 mothers in our focus group. By the end of 2022, after our pilot and initial distribution, we will be serving 10,000. This will be 5,000 through our 3 pilot communities. Then, another 5,000 in the next 3 communities we launch to.

We aim to increase exclusive breastfeeding in the communities we serve to at least 80%. The current rate is 17%. As exclusive breastfeeding increases, the next few years will mark decreased child mortality in the community. Our app is a proven intervention to increase breastfeeding rates.

Indicator one: Exclusive Breastfeeding Rate

Indicator two: Under-5 (Child) Mortality Rate

Our barriers are mainly financial. In order to make our app accessible, it must be free for mothers to use. This means Mwana must bear the cost of SMS fees. Additionally, in order to obtain more users, we must launch widespread awareness campaigns (radio ads, flyers, on-the-ground distributors). These are the main setbacks we are currently experiencing that are halting the forward momentum on our pilot and subsequent distribution.

Our team consists of 3 international members and 3 locals to Nigeria. The locals, in particular, are able to spearhead on-the-ground testing and distribution efforts. They are also fluent in the native language which enables us to partner with local hospitals, shops, medical officials, government officials, etc. Our international team members are focused on the software powering our solution. All three have worked at, or currently work at, an AI-oriented company, enabling them to effectively build the product's backend. Additionally, the team lead has previous experience building a company, leading her last product to adoption in 26 countries with 20,000 users.

Mwana has two partners:

• FAYOHI - a local Nigerian NGO that facilitates distribution efforts and mediates communication between Mwana and the state government.
• Ladoke Akintola University - provides testers for our focus group

Our team lead is a woman passionate about solving health inequities. Child healthcare is a key facet of the UN's sustainable development goals, making us a good fit for this prize.

Our team would use the prize to connect us with key stakeholders that can provide long-term funding for the project. Additionally, the prize itself can be used to sustain our project for over one year.

Our product explicitly targets women and girls and their unmet needs in maternal healthcare. Most rural areas do not have basic health resources – let alone that for birth and development. Additionally, breastfeeding is an unmet need even by the largest international interventions. 

Our team would use the prize to connect us with key stakeholders that can provide long-term funding for the project. Additionally, the prize itself can be used to sustain our project for several years.