Providence-based startup maternova.net was recently named a semi-finalist in the 2011 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, a prestigious annual design science competition that awards $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a whole systems-based solution that has “significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.”
“We are thrilled to be chosen as a semi-finalist by the Buckminster Fuller judges who have clearly understood our system-wide and design-centered approach to redressing maternal mortality, one of the greatest social injustices our world still faces. We would use the […] prize funding to expand our initiative into the ten worst-off countries in the world,” said Meg Wirth, founder of Maternova. Finalists in the competition will be announced in May and the winner, a runner-up and an honorable mention will be chosen in June.
PBN: Tell us about Maternova and why you created it.
WIRTH: Maternova is a Web-based global marketplace for life-saving innovations for mothers and newborns. The company is supported by revenues from product bundles and through licensing our mapping software. I have worked in the field of global public health for the last 15 years and saw a unique confluence of dramatic trends: increases in social entrepreneurship, a surge of innovation in global health technologies and a big shift in the political attention and funding for maternal/newborn health. No one was tracking innovation in this field and I saw the opportunity for an open, interactive web-based innovation hub in this niche area.
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PBN: Maternova was incorporated in May 2009 but the product sales began in November 2010. What kind of products does Maternova sell and how have sales been going?
WIRTH: We started by building our Innovation Index which now tracks more than 100 tools and ideas in this space. The Innovation Index and our social media strategy draw eyeballs to our site. We’ve had 20,000 unique visitors from 150 countries. We want to hit 1 million unique visitors by 2012.
Our second product is a line of kits, bundling key innovations in obstetric packs for the millions of frontline providers and organizations providing healthcare around the globe. One of our packs, the power pack, has a solar powered headlamp and a rotary phone charger. It is a simple power solution for frontline workers who are off the grid. Considering that we have not launched a formal marketing campaign we are happy with early sales, but want to see dramatic growth in the third quarter. By 2013 we aim to sell volumes in the tens of thousands.
With 120 million births a year in low-income countries and with the right strategic partners we are optimistic about scaling rapidly.
PBN: Maternova is a for-profit company with a sort of nonprofit goal – making maternal and newborn health more efficient and effective – do the two mesh well?
WIRTH: We think they do. This is quite an interesting area in business right now: mission-driven businesses, social enterprises, B corporations and more. You could argue that many health care companies have a “nonprofit mission.” We address market gaps and innovation in what is an enormous market – $15 billion is spent per year on maternal and newborn products and services just in the lowest income countries of the world, and much of that is by the private sector or out of pocket. So it is a market, it’s just that people haven’t always thought of it that way.
PBN: The Maternova website is very user-friendly. I was intrigued by the “global health map” – crowdsourcing a map on facilities that provide obstetric care around the world seems quite innovative. What can you tell me about this project? Is it the first of its kind?
WIRTH: We’re glad you like the site. We believe that it is crucial for health systems to know exactly where their clinics are and to have live, interactive updates to key signal functions of those facilities (drug stockouts, staff changes, hours’ changes). This is critical to saving women’s lives during childbirth. There is a lot of mapping innovation going on particularly for crisis mapping. Ours is the first software as a service offering that focuses on maternal health or obstetric care. We want to facilitate building the maps before the crises hit! Our pilot was funded by the MacArthur Foudation in Chiapas, Mexico. We offer visual databases (a map connected to a database) that can sit on a site as a widget allowing rapid updates, interaction by staff and even updates via cell phone (maternova.net).
PBN: What have been your biggest challenges founding a startup in Rhode Island?
WIRTH: Well, I’m happy to say that Rhode Island has been a serendipitous fit for us. We just happen to be here but we so glad that we are. We were in the first class of the CHANGE Accelerator, a social enterprise bootcamp started by Social Enterprise Rhode Island , we are housed in the Box Office at CHANGE place also run by SERI and we have benefited from Brown and RISD student interns and research assistants, relationships with BIF, RI-CIE, RI Nexus and Betaspring. I honestly can’t think of a better place for us. We just need the veteran angel networks to get as excited about social enterprise as everyone else is.
