Unicef and ARM Unleash Technology to Transform Children’s Lives
21 May 2015 01:19 PM
Unicef and ARM have announced a multi-year partnership to accelerate the development of new technologies to overcome the barriers that prevent millions of families from accessing basic health, education and support services.
The partnership’s first action is to collaborate with global product strategy and design firm frog on a ‘Wearables for Good’ challenge to generate ideas for new and innovative devices that tackle maternal and child health needs in emerging economies.
The partnership will focus on enabling Unicef to provide faster and more comprehensive help to children coping with the effects of mass urbanization and increased social and economic divides. Together, Unicef and ARM will use their influence to encourage the tech sector to innovate for impact.
Initial deliverables in the multi-year partnership include:
- Unicef and ARM have partnered with frog to launch the ‘Wearables for Good’ design challenge. The challenge asks: Could wearable and sensor technology be the next mobile revolution? Running over six months, the challenge invites developers, designers, community partners and problem-solvers to design a wearable device that offers a cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable solution to pressing maternal, newborn or child health problems.
- ARM will work alongside Unicef’s network of Innovation Labs and country offices to identify and scale up pilot projects that demonstrate the potential to be used at a national level. Over the next year, Unicef and ARM will uncover the most impactful solutions being used or in trials across the Unicef network and invest to deliver them wherever they are needed.
- Longer term, the Unicef/ARM partnership will conduct research to evaluate and promote market opportunities in developing countries. With the findings, Unicef and ARM will outline the business case for investing in solutions for mobile financial services, identity, transportation, learning and wearable/sensor technology. The joint goal is to build momentum for globally co-created and scalable technologies that attract commercial investment.
“We need to innovate with social purpose in order to overcome the barriers of time, distance and lack of information that prevent millions of children from surviving and realizing their potential,” said Erica Kochi, Co-lead, Unicef Innovation. “By working together with ARM we improve our ability to develop new technologies that impact children and help them grow up healthy, educated and able to positively contribute to their families, communities and wider economies.”
“Technology should be used to create opportunity for all; improving child health, education and prospects, and access to it should not be governed by economic status or geography,” said Simon Segars, CEO, ARM. “We have spent 25 years enabling life-changing technologies and together with Unicef’s innovation experts we believe this partnership can deliver a positive social impact for children all-around the world.”
The recent partnership announcement has evolved from a growing understanding between Unicef and ARM that technology can have a defining impact on children’s lives. With that shared view, Unicef and ARM aim to drive sector-wide change, creating an ecosystem of technology companies that explore the potential social impact of new technologies they develop.
See a short video interview with Simon Segars, ARM CEO and Erica Kochi, Co-lead, Unicef Innovation on ARMFlix.
‘Wearables for Good’ design challenge
The launch of the ‘Wearables for Good’ design challenge with frog signifies the commencement of Unicef and ARM’s partnership. The competition panel will assess the entries on several levels including product and service design that disrupts or improves the status quo, sustainability of technology and potential impact at scale.
Entrants will be guided by the ‘Use Case Handbook’ created by Unicef and frog. The handbook outlines the challenges that need to be addressed, as well as considerations, context and principles for good design.
Two winners will be selected at the end of the design challenge. Each winner will receive $15,000 funding alongside incubation and mentorship support from ARM and frog.
“Today, wearable technologies are primarily focused on applications such as fitness and the quantified self,” said Denise Gershbein, Executive Creative Director at frog. “However, there are countless opportunities for wearable and sensor technology to make more of an impact in emerging markets, particularly in the next wave of social impact development. With the ‘Wearables for Good’ challenge we hope to foster dialogue among new partners and increase cross-discipline innovation.”
The ‘Wearables for Good’ design challenge goes live today, May 19, 2015, and entry details can be found athttp://wearablesforgood.com.
Notes to Editors
Unicef and ARM each have a history of developing technology-based solutions that improve social good, including:
- Literacy Bridge, which is jointly supported by Unicef and ARM, is a portable listening device being used in Ghana used to relay health, agricultural and education information. The Talking Book is being trialled by 40,000 people in the first mass trials
- ARM provides support to SimPrints, a portable biometric reader that compares a person’s fingerprints to a database containing medical records. It is being tested in Bangladesh and more than 1,000 people are now registered on the system
- Unicef’s U-Report is a mobile phone, text-based service designed to give young people a chance to voice their opinions on important issues. To date U-Report is live in 14 countries and reaches 700,000 young people, with plans to scale to 20 countries, reaching 1 million by the end of 2015
- Unicef’s EduTrac is a data collection system that uses basic mobile phones to support and strengthen education systems by enabling front-line education workers to report on indicators and get critical information, such as the location of supplies, in real-time. In Uganda, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, educators are using EduTrac to report on indicators, such as absenteeism, cases of violence against children, curriculum progress and supervision visits.
Contacts
Andy Winstanley, Director of Corporate PR, ARM, +44 1223 405244/ +44 7788 249712 // andy.winstanley@arm.com
Dana Zucker, Communications Lead: Unicef Innovation +1 973-462-3855 // dzucker@unicef.org
Vicky Gashe, Senior Media & Communications Manager, Unicef UK 020 7375 6120 / 07785 468987 //vickyg@unicef.org.uk
Helen Fitzhugh, Carrie Buchwalter & Kate Bell, Kwittken, on behalf of frog +44 (0)20 7401 8001 //froguk@kwittken.com
About ARM
ARM 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 60 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 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.
Unicef Innovation is an interdisciplinary team of individuals around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling technologies and practices that strengthen Unicef's work. We build and scale innovations that improve children’s lives around the world. For more information about Unicef's work in innovation, visit: www.unicef.org/innovation andwww.unicefstories.org. Follow us on Twitter.
About frog
frog is a global product strategy and design firm. Our work solves problems, anticipates the future and advances the human experience. We are more than 600 strategists, researchers, designers, and technologists who consult and partner with clients across industries. Headquartered in San Francisco, we have offices in Amsterdam, Austin, Boston, London, Milan, Munich, New York, Seattle, Shanghai and Singapore. www.frogdesign.com.