Early release of Child Growth Monitor
Beta version of the app to be made available due to coronavirus
Child Growth Monitor is a mobile app to measure and diagnose children for malnutrition. Instead of using a scale, height board or MUAC tape Child Growth Monitor uses image data taken with an off-the-shelf smartphone and AI. Our app is still in development mode. Due to COVID-19 we want to release an early version of Child Growth Monitor – Child Growth Monitor beta.
Traditional measurement tools and methods are unreliable
Today, only 35% of measurements for malnutrition are correct (source: Boston Consulting Group). The reasons for this low number of correct measurements are:
- lack of anthropometric measurement experts
- inconsistent measurement methods
- data fraud
- unreliable hardware
Due to COVID-19 most countries have stopped measuring children
Social distancing in times of COVID-19 has stopped measurement activities in many developing countries. If children are not measured, they will not be identified and treated as malnourished.
The effects of COVID-19 on developing countries will be devastating
The UN Global Humanitarian Response Plan to COVID-19 fears that hunger will increase substantially during and following this crisis. The World Food Programme predicts up to 265 million people will be suffering from acute hunger by the end of 2020.
An estimated 30 million children are at risk of death from secondary health impacts of COVID-19, including a 40% increase in children suffering from malnutrition.
The need to identify food insecurity and malnutrition is therefore all the more important.
This is why we want to release our Child Growth Monitor ASAP as a beta version
Originally, we wanted to release the first Child Growth Monitor version in 2021. Due to COVID-19 we are planning to release a beta version as quickly as possible.
The advantages of Child Growth Monitor beta are:
- No touching of the child required – keeping a safe distance of 1.5m is possible
- Available within the next couple of months
- Better data quality
- Standardised method
The disadvantages of Child Growth Monitor beta are:
- Accuracy not as high as fully developed solution
- Tool not yet ready for market (earliest July 2020)
- Funding for development not secured yet
The accuracy of Child Growth Monitor beta will not be as high as with our fully developed solution. For mitigation we will add a security layer of “reliability”. Thus, our app will show to 100% if our diagnosis is correct or not. When a child is scanned with our solution, we will be able to give a diagnosis and say with 100% certainty if our diagnosis is reliable (correct) or not. If a diagnosis is not correct, the child has to be measured repeatedly with our app or by hand.
Privacy and data protection are of utmost importance
In contrast to other solutions Child Growth Monitor is an open source, non-profit project. Data collected with child Growth Monitor will belong to the caregivers of the children.
Become a partner!
We have a list of some of the best partners in the business.
- World Food Programme
- Microsoft
- GSMA (association representing mobile network operators worldwide)
- Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany
- Happel Foundation
- GIZ (German association for international cooperation)
- The Boston Consulting Group
We are still looking for partners and donors to release Child Growth Monitor beta.
Please contact us, if you want to contribute.
