TED Talk- Jane Chen

"What could you place in your hands?"

In her TED talk, Jane Chen opened by saying, “Please close your eyes, and open your hands. Now imagine what you could place in your hands.” After giving some examples, Jane asked the audience to open their eyes. On the screen was a picture of a tiny premature baby, being held in two hands. As the picture was onscreen, she referred back to what we could place in our hands. She asked, “What about a life?” She went on to tell the story of the baby, and how millions of other are just like him. She explained the health problems premature babies have, and then went into a more personal story. The story was about a mother in India who lost her premature baby because she didn’t have a way to get him to a hospital. Jane helped put her topic into perspective. As she was speaking, she had passion about what she was talking about. She knew what she was saying and how to say it. The stories she told, and her personal experience helped the listener understand the problem. Jane then went on and told her solution, instead of introducing it first. I thought this was a great idea because introducing the problem at the beginning makes the audience want to find a solution. Chen’s idea was great and her passion for what she was doing made me want to help too.

Jane and her team came up with this idea

Jane Chen is the CEO and co-founder of a company called Embrace. Millions of babies die each year from premature birth. The world has technology to save these babies, yet it has become too expensive at around $20,000 per incubator. Warmth is crucial for a premature baby to regulate body temperature and prevent hypothermia. It can help not only survival but long term growth as well. Without these incubators, premature babies can have growing issues or even die. Jane, touched by the story of a premature baby’s mother from India wanted to change this. She and her partners realized they needed a local solution that could work without electricity, that was simple enough for a mother to use, something portable, that could be sterilized and reused across multiple babies, and most important ultra low cost. Jane and her team came up with a sleeping bag type heater. A wax-like substance that can be reheated by water is placed into the back and the baby can lay inside. The “sleeping bag” can maintain on temperature for 4 to 6 hours at a time. The target price point is only $25. That is less than .1% of the cost of an incubator in the US. This technology can not only save lives, but it can change countries. Overpopulated countries like China or India will have a reduction in population growth, because families don’t have to assume they will lose their baby. Not only is this technology doing good for babies and their families, it is helping countries as well. Jane talked about how we need to think of simple, localized, affordable solutions that have potential to make huge social impact. This idea relates to the Dave Eggers TED talk we watched. Dave and his team thought of a simple solution to help children with school, which was absolutely free. He had an impact on these kids and their community; it changed the way the children looked at learning. Simple solutions like these can be the future of technology. We just need to find a way to empathize and see through other people’s eyes. Jane looked through the eyes of an Indian mother, who lost her child because she could not afford the technology to save its life. Dave looked through the eyes of teachers and students, and though of a way to reinvent learning, and make it a fun and creative process. Empathy, which was brought up in A Whole New Mind, can help us better understand other people. It can help us change the world. 

Incubator needed by premature babies

Family effected by Embrace

Family effected by Embrace

Embrace being used to warm a premature baby