Innovate. Invent. Experiment. In this series, Imperial alumni tell us what they are working on.
Interview with Malav Sanghavi about BabyLifeBox
Who
Malav Sanghavi (MSc DIC Innovation Design Engineering 2016). Innovation Design Engineering is a course offered jointly by Imperial and the Royal College of Art.
What
LifeCradle makes low-cost baby incubators from cardboard. Our aim is to provide the basic functionality for a child’s survival in the critical first days of its life, including warmth, humidity, monitoring of vital signs and phototherapy for babies born with jaundice. After this time, the bottom part can be given to parents to use as a rudimentary cot. It has the potential to save millions of lives, especially in countries like India, which has the highest number of babies dying within the first 24 hours of their birth in the world – at more than 300,000 a year.
How
The incubator is currently in the product development phase, with pilot testing due to be completed by the end of this year in several Indian states, where we’ve been collaborating with different organisations, including the United Nations.
Inspiration
My cousin’s daughter was kept alive in an incubator when she was born in India. After research, I discovered that three million children die within one week of their birth every year and that 99 per cent of newborn deaths happen in middle and low income countries. My inclination towards designing in the field of healthcare now had a focus and led me – with the help of experts – to develop LifeCradle, inspired by Finnish baby boxes and neonatal care in the UK.
Motivation
I’ve always been attracted to the field of social entrepreneurship and I believe that if I can bring change to the life of just one individual with the cardboard incubator, it’s worth it. The recognition for our efforts to save lives also keeps me going. Recently, I got into the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list and our solution was named as one of the best at the Vatican Youth Symposium late last year.
The Future
By 2025, my goal is to have substantially reduced the local infant mortality rate in India, Africa and Latin Amerca. Because LifeCradle is a social enterprise, we anticipate the price of each incubator being around 90 per cent cheaper than existing ones – and we are working with organisations including UNICEF, WHO and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help set up low-cost neonatal intensive care units in places where they are not available at the moment. Eventually, we want to widen our aims to work with women from day one of pregnancy to ensure there is less chance of death – to include things like raising awareness of reducing risk and giving out healthy diet plans.
Malav Sanghavi is the founder of LifeCradle, the low cost cardboard baby incubator for developing and underdeveloped countries, and founder and director of Creto Ltd, developing programmable smart sockets for amputees.