Wekebere is designing the future of prenatal care with technologies to help mothers and babies. Combining connected devices and data analytics to both reassure and empower mothers and provide doctors with tools and information to better predict and manage pregnancy outcomes.
The team seeks to improve birth outcomes through remote pregnancy care and building digital biomarkers. Their product predicts and manages pregnancy complications in the early stages which is mostly between the period of conception to the first 1000 days of life. These days are the most critical for the lifelong development of the mother and child.
At the heart of their solution is a medical grade AI powered wearable device that can easily track various physiological parameters for maternal and fetal health. These include parameters that are used in clinical practice today such as fetal heart rate, maternal stress, uterine activity as well as parameters that have been shown in clinical studies to increase risk of preterm birth for which we lack effective tools to track and manage.
The sensor connects to a smartphone app and is able to provide personalized feedback to mothers which helps improve the quality of service in assessing their health and wellbeing. All these data collected are stored in the cloud where they produce clinical reports to help doctors effectively screen and manage risk and gain greater transparency over adherence to clinical guidelines that are provided to mothers.
In 2021 they developed the 4th generation prototype and piloted it in Kawempe national referral hospital. The success was remarkable. Their remote consultation platform was launched in 2022, with clinical partners, funding organization and funding from research organizations in both Uganda and abroad to advance their product.
The Wekebere team has a proven track record of developing most advanced patient monitoring solutions in the fields of neurology and cardiovascular. They are further supported by top medical advisors throughout Nigeria that have direct experience dealing with managing high risk pregnancies in underserved communities.
They are currently raising $1M USD in grant and equity. They are also looking for experts and strategic partners in their target market who can support and offer mentorship through market entry, local partnership and regulatory landscape as they scale. Check them out at wekebere.org/.
