A Digital Necklace and a Wearable Soap Win ‘Wearables for Good’ Design Challenge with UNICEF, ARM and frog

Winning designs help track child immunization and limit spread of
diseases

HELSINKI & NEW YORK & LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A necklace that stores electronic health data to track child
immunization and a wearable soap that helps limit the spread of
infectious viruses by encouraging hand washing, have won the Wearables
for Good challenge run by UNICEF, ARM and frog. The winning designs,
both led by joint Indian-US teams, will each receive a prize of $15,000
and incubation and mentoring from the partners.

Khushi Baby is a data-storing necklace that provides a two-year personal
immunization record for children. It uses Near Field Communication (NFC)
technology to send and receive information through a smartphone. Data is
synced to the cloud and displayed on a dashboard accessible to health
officials.

SoaPen is a personal hygiene tool in the form of a soap-crayon that
encourages the habit of handwashing among school children from the ages
of 3-6 years. Teachers and parents can draw or write on a child’s skin
to make the act of hand-washing engaging while reducing the spread of
disease.

The Wearables for Good competition was launched in May 2015 and quickly
became regarded as one of the world’s most inclusive technology and
design challenges, attracting 2,000 registrants from 65 countries that
resulted in 250 design submissions. It focused on moving the perception
of wearables from nice-to-have devices to life-saving products that
could work in any environment.

Ruchit Nagar, representing the Khushi Baby team said: “Khushi Baby want
to ensure that all infants have access to informed and timely health
care by owning a copy of their medical history. The Khushi Baby system
enables access to culturally appropriate wearable digital medical
records, even in the most remote and isolated areas. We believe in
tracking each child’s immunization to the last mile, and as a UNICEF
Wearables for Good Challenge winner, we look to expand from monitoring
the vaccination progress of 1,000 children in 100 villages to a larger
beneficiary base in areas beyond India where our digital system can
streamline access and delivery to health care. We also look forward to
building our system to serve broader populations and medical
applications, moving soon to a wider focus on a continuum of maternal
and child health care. At its core, Khushi Baby functions as a key to
connect those in need of services to a digitally integrated community.”

Shubham Issar, from SoaPen, said: “We believe that a serious problem can
be solved through a simple and fun solution. Our focus is to reduce
infant mortality rates and the spread of disease by promoting the habit
of hand washing with soap among children. SoaPen taps into the power of
the two directional awareness flow between adults and children all over
the world, with the aim to reach as many hands as fast as possible!”

Erica Kochi, co-lead and co-founder of UNICEF Innovation said: “UNICEF
scans the near-future horizon focusing on areas undergoing rapid changes
that could have a significant impact on children. By showing how
wearables and sensors can be re-imagined for low-tech and unconnected
environments, our winners were able to demonstrate the potential
life-saving benefits these innovations can offer. These results are
really promising — if I told you 10 years ago that I thought mobile
phones could strengthen national health systems, you would have told me
I’m crazy. I’m excited to see if wearable and sensor technologies could
be the next mobile revolution.”

Simon Segars, CEO of ARM said: “The power to influence lives through
great design is now in the hands of anyone with a conscience and the
will to help others. By using readily available technologies, all of the
finalists showed us how incredibly simple ideas can have the potential
to be transformative. The winners in particular demonstrate how the work
we’re doing with UNICEF can help push innovation that can radically
improve the prospects for children in the emerging world.”

Denise Gershbein, Executive Creative Director of frog said: “We wanted
to elevate wearable and sensor technology in a way that moves beyond
fitness trackers on the wrist and towards improving the lives of mothers
and children across the world. It was our goal to bring together a broad
and diverse community of people whose ideas and efforts would be much
more powerful when brought together in new ways. We are extremely
pleased with the dialogue that has resulted from this effort, and truly
humbled and impressed by the solutions generated by the winners. We look
forward to seeing real impact in the world from these ideas.”

The winners were announced at SLUSH, a 15,000+ person start-up and
technology event in Helsinki, Finland, and at ARM TechCon, a high-tech
event for software and hardware developers in Santa Clara, California.

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Note to the editor: The Wearables for Good design Challenge
complements the successful launch of UNICEF Kid Power, the world’s first
WEARABLE-FOR-GOOD™ which is currently available in the US. By getting
active with the UNICEF Kid Power Band, kids go on missions to earn
points to unlock therapeutic food packets for severely malnourished
children around the world. For further information, visit UNICEFKidPower.org.

About the finalists:

Please visit the Wearables
for Good Challenge
website for profiles on each of the finalists.

About UNICEF

UNICEF promotes the rights and well-being of every child, in everything
we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and
territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing
special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to
the benefit of all children, everywhere. For more information about
UNICEF visit: www.unicef.org.
Follow us on Twitter
and Facebook.
For more information about UNICEF’s work in innovation, visit our website,
read our blog,
and follow us on Twitter.

About ARM

ARM (LSE: ARM, NASDAQ: ARMH.US) is at the heart of the world’s most
advanced digital products. Our technology enables the creation of new
markets and transformation of industries and society. We design
scalable, energy-efficient processors and related technologies to
deliver the intelligence in applications ranging from sensors to
servers, including smartphones, tablets, enterprise infrastructure and
the Internet of Things.

Our innovative technology is licensed by ARM Partners who have shipped
more than 75 billion System on Chip (SoCs) containing our intellectual
property since the company began in 1990. Together with our Connected
Community, we are breaking down barriers to innovation for developers,
designers and engineers, ensuring a fast, reliable route to market for
leading electronics companies. Learn more and join the conversation at http://community.arm.com.

About frog

frog is a global design and strategy firm. We transform
businesses at scale by creating systems of brand, product and service
that deliver a distinctly better experience. We strive to touch hearts
and move markets. Our passion is to transform ideas into realities. We
partner with clients to anticipate the future, evolve organizations and
advance the human experience.

San Francisco . Seattle . Austin . New York . Boston . London .
Amsterdam . Milan . Munich . Singapore . Shanghai

www.frogdesign.com

Contacts

UNICEF UK
Vicky Gashe
+44 20 7375 6120
+44 7785
468987
vickyg@unicef.org.uk
or
UNICEF
New York

Najwa Mekki
+1 212 326 7448
+1 917 209 1804
nmekki@unicef.orgmailto:nmekki@unicef.org
or
ARM
Andy
Winstanley
+44 1223 405244
+44 7788 249712
andy.winstanley@arm.com
or
frog
Kyra
Cyphers
+646 747 7165
Kcyphers@kwittken.com

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