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WHEELS Global Foundation, USA and WHEELS Global India in Association with IIT Bombay Launch an Interactive Multi-Media App, Assisting New Mothers with Breastfeeding
The Maa-Shishu Aarogya App Fulfills WHEELS Global Foundation’s Motto: "Technology Enabled Philanthropy"
Reston, VA – March 29, 2018 – WHEELS Global Foundation (WGF) and WHEELS Global India in partnership with Spoken Tutorial Project, IIT Bombay, and Sunrise Computer Software Pvt. Ltd launched an App in India on January 30, 2018. This app will assist mothers, (ASHA)s, ANMs, and Anganwadi workers with breastfeeding, complementary feeding, and maternal nutrition to tackle malnutrition at the grass root level of India.
By empowering people with knowledge about correct breastfeeding techniques and complementary feeding along with maternal nutrition for the first 1,000 days of the baby, the app aims to reduce infant mortality in India and other parts of the world. Considering the importance of health awareness among the people, WGF in association with IIT Bombay under the leadership of Prof. Kannan Moudglaya (dept. of Chemical engineering, IIT Bombay and Principal investigator of Spoken Tutorial Project, IIT Bombay) has created multimedia content on breastfeeding, complementary foods & pregnant & lactating mothers nutrition in English, Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, and Gujarati. “Exclusive breastfeeding is the first cut solution to malnutrition in India, with the consequential benefit of increasing the GDP by several percentage points,” says Prof. Moudgalya. According to a study by U.S.-based media agency Zenith-India is estimated to have 530 million smartphone users in 2018. The creation of the app (and its usage through smartphones) helps fulfill WGF’s motto: “Technology Enabled Philanthropy.” WGF believes that technology can be the catalyst to alleviate some of the challenges faced in rural regions, PAN India.
The app’s original content was developed by Dr. Rupal Dalal, an internationally recognized authority on child nutrition and development. The Internationally Board-Certified Lactation Consultant has monitored more than 10,000 children under 5 years of age and has set up the FMCH & SMDT Community Nutrition Intervention Model in Maharashtra, India.
The COO of WHEELS Global India Mr. Satyajit Kulkarni says, the app will show mothers Spoken Tutorials for correct latching and breastfeeding techniques, complementary feeding, guidelines for maternal nutrition, breastfeeding conditions & difficulties, reading growth charts, and other such important topics.”
This multimedia content was developed by IIT alumnus Mr. Uday M. Mehta of Sunrise Computer Software Pvt. Ltd is integrated into the “Maa-Shishu Aarogya” Interactive Mobile App, an integral part of an experiential learning platform called ‘Maharishi Augmented Reality System – MARS’. This app can be downloaded on android mobile devices. Internet connectivity is required for installation and data update.
This app ‘MARS.MSA’ can be downloaded from the Google play store along with an instructional video and is for use in India only.