Frog and UNICEF partner to tackle infant health
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Industrial design firm Frog Design, perhaps best known for the creation of the case for the Apple IIc, is working in partnership with children’s charity UNICEF as the lead design partner on Project Mwana, a major mhealth initiative to improve maternal and infant health and welfare in Malawi and rural Zambia. The project will start off by making use of mobile technologies in innovative ways to significantly increase mothers’ visits to clinics for ante and postnatal care.
Mobile technology is particularly important as a communications vehicle in Malawi and Zambia, as there is little other existing infrastructure with which to reach large volumes of the population. According to figures from Informa Telecoms & Media’s WCIS, mobile penetration in Malawi hit 20 per cent at the end of September and 40 per cent in Zambia. Under the partnership, working closely with UNICEF’s own Innovation Team, Frog will donate its services to develop sustainable mobile systems that will be able to communicate critical information on clinic locations, availability of services, delivery of results and other information to the end users. A target of January 2012 has been set for the first effects of this partnership to be felt.
