The winners of the Wearables for Good challenge, curated by UNICEF, ARM and frog, are a necklace that stores electronic health data to track child immunization and a wearable soap that encourages handwashing among children.
The SoaPen is a teaching tool for children that promotes good hand hygiene. It takes the form of a "soap crayon" that enables teachers and parents to mark critical areas for cleaning on hands by drawing directly on skin. The team believes kids will form better habits if handwashing is fun.
The necklace, Khushi Baby, functions as a wearable health record by placing a chip containing immunization data on a necklace. Without needing to connect to a central database, healthcare workers can the necklaces and access and make changes to the patient's health record, which syncs to the cloud. More than just a data collection tool, Khushi Baby's creators hope the device can drive behavioral change in wearers and increase community engagement in health.
The project was launched in May and received 250 design submissions across 65 countries. Both winning designs were led by joint Indian-U.S. teams and will receive a $15,000 mentoring and incubation prize.