Xpectrum

Babies normally cry for about 1 to 3 hours a day, they usually cry when hungry, sleepy, and in discomfort. This leaves the first time parents and deaf parents worried. Much worse for deaf parents because of their inability to hear their babies. According to a study conducted by University of Cambridge, parent-child interaction, including the ability to notice, interpret, and respond in a timely and appropriate manner to child's signals, is crucial to child's development and learning. Thus, this greatly affects the physical, mental, emotional development of a baby. To solve this problem, Xpectrum a monitoring device and mobile application that monitors, analyses and classifies a baby’s cry to identify the needs of the baby. Whenever the baby cries, the monitoring device sends an alert to the mobile application to notify the parent. Xpectrum empowers first time and deaf parents/caregivers, reducing barriers to support overall child's development.

According to the World Health Organization, there are estimated 466 million people in the world, 6.1% of the world’s population has hearing impairment. 93% of these are adults. With 131.4 million births per year worldwide, most of them are from first-time mothers while 5% are from deaf mothers.

Babies normally cry for about 1 to 3 hours a day, they usually cry when hungry, sleepy, and in discomfort. For anyone who looks after a baby, it is important to act as fast as possible to satisfy the baby’s needs. Unfortunately, the guardian is not always capable of understanding why and when the baby is crying and much worse for deaf parents because of their inability to hear their babies. According to a study conducted by University of Cambridge, parent-child interaction, including the ability to notice, interpret, and respond in a timely and appropriate manner to child's signals, is crucial to child's development and learning. Thus, this greatly affects the physical, mental, emotional development of a baby. Therefore, there is a need for a device to monitor, analyze, and classify a baby's cry for deaf and first-time parents to respond to the needs of their baby appropriately.

Xpectrum is significant for deaf and first-time parents. Most babies cry as a way to communicate and express their needs. For new parents, it may be difficult to recognize and meet their babies want and it is more difficult for deaf parents to know and identify when their baby is crying. 

Xpectrum is a monitoring device and mobile application that monitors, analyses and classifies a baby’s cry to identify the needs of the baby. Whenever the baby cries, the monitoring device sends an alert to the mobile application to notify the parent and identify the possible reason why the baby cries. The device uses audio processing utilizing deep learning to detect and classify a baby's cry.

The technology used for Xpectrum is existing, but we believe that is not about the technology that makes it innovative, it is all about how do we utilize existing technology to solve problems and make a better community. Xpectrum uses audio processing and deep learning to detect and classify a baby's cry while existing technologies can only classify a baby's cry but doesn't have a real-time monitoring capability. Also, some existing technologies can only detect a baby's cry but it can't classify it.

Xpectrum is an IOT monitoring device that uses audio processing utilizing deep learning to detect and classify a baby's cry.

Xpectrum empowers first-time and deaf parents to identify the needs of their babies which first-time and deaf parents are having a difficulty.

Our team is composed of 4 Computer Engineering Students (CpE), a Full-time Lecturer, and 2 Computer Engineers.

Our team is composed of 2 CpE Students specializing in Data Science, 2 CpE Students specializing in System Administration, 2 CpE Graduates specialized in Embedded Systems, and headed by a Full-time Lecturer with a Master in Engineering Degree.

Currently, our solution is at the stage of development, and we're still looking for industry partners.

The team plans to have a business to customer business model, targeting first-time and/or deaf parents to buy the device.

In order to have financial sustainability, the team must have its revenue streams through sales of the IOT device and the mobile application. 

The team applied to solve because of the opportunities in MIT network for the mentoring on how will we improve our solution to help on communities. Partnership with MIT Solve will greatly help us to advance our solution in terms of testing, evaluating, and scaling our solution worldwide. MIT Solve can also help us on complying in the standards for medical devices for the FDA certifications.

Aside from the different choices, we think that the best thing we could gain is having an experienced mentor that could guide us during the initial stages of the device. 

The team will use the prize to improve and scale the prototype, for the device to be available worldwide. The team is also planning to use the prize to apply for FDA certifications, for the device to be certified by FDA.

Xpectrum is a technology that empowers not only first-time and deaf mothers or caregivers but also every women who are having difficulty in monitoring a baby. The team is planning to use the prize to donate some devices to organizations of deaf mothers.

The team is planning to use the prize for the maintenance and improvement of the device to scale our solution worldwide. Xpectrum also utilizes cloud technologies to interconnect devices but all sensitive data of users are stored securely in the device. Some of User's information that are necessary for the inter-connectivity of the mobile application and monitoring device are securely stored in our server.