ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jane Chen - Social entrepreneur
TED Fellow Jane Chen has spent years working on health issues in the developing world.

Why you should listen

Jane Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Embrace, a social enterprise that aims to help the millions of vulnerable babies born every year in developing countries through a low-cost infant warmer. Unlike traditional incubators that cost up to $20,000, the Embrace infant warmer costs around $200. The device requires no electricity, has no moving parts, is portable and is safe and intuitive to use.

Chen received her Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to her graduate studies, Jane was the Program Director of Chi Heng Foundation, a nonprofit organization that sponsors the education of children affected by AIDS in central China. She was also formerly a management consultant at Monitor Group.

In 2009, Chen was a TEDIndia Fellow

More profile about the speaker
Jane Chen | Speaker | TED.com
TEDIndia 2009

Jane Chen: A warm embrace that saves lives

Jane Chen: Unha cálida aperta que salva vidas

Filmed:
874,886 views

Nos países en vías de desenvolvemento, o acceso ás incubadoras é limitado debido ao seu custo e á distancia ao lugar onde se atopan, o que supón a morte de millóns de bebés prematuros cada ano. Jane Chen, membro destacado de TED (fellow), amósanos un invento que podería manter quentes a millóns destes bebés mediante un deseño que é seguro, portable, de baixo custo e salva vidas.
- Social entrepreneur
TED Fellow Jane Chen has spent years working on health issues in the developing world. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:15
Please close your eyes,
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Pechade os ollos
00:18
and open your hands.
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e abride as mans.
00:21
Now imagine what you could place in your hands:
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Imaxinade o que collería nelas:
00:24
an apple, maybe your wallet.
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unha mazá, quizais a carteira...
00:27
Now open your eyes.
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Abride os ollos.
00:29
What about a life?
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E unha vida?
00:31
What you see here is a premature baby.
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O que vedes é un bebé prematuro.
00:33
He looks like he's resting peacefully, but in fact he's struggling to stay alive
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Parece que descansa tranquilamente,
mais loita pola súa vida
00:36
because he can't regulate his own body temperature.
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porque non pode regular
a temperatura corporal.
00:39
This baby is so tiny he doesn't have
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É tan pequeno que non ten
00:41
enough fat on his body to stay warm.
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graxa dabondo para manter a calor.
00:43
Sadly, 20 million babies like this
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Por desgraza, 20 millóns destes bebés
00:46
are born every year around the world.
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nacen cada ano en todo o mundo.
00:49
Four million of these babies die annually.
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Catro millóns deles morren cada ano.
00:51
But the bigger problem is that the ones who do survive
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O maior problema é que os que sobreviven
00:54
grow up with severe, long-term health problems.
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medran con graves problemas
de saúde a longo prazo.
00:57
The reason is because in the first month of a baby's life,
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Isto débese a que no primeiro mes
da vida humana,
01:00
its only job is to grow.
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á única tarefa é medrar.
Se combate a hipotermia,
os órganos non se poden desenvolver
01:02
If it's battling hypothermia, its organs can't develop normally,
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01:05
resulting in a range of health problems
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e así xorden unha variedade de problemas
01:07
from diabetes, to heart disease,
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como a diabetes, doenzas cardíacas
01:09
to low I.Q.
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ou un coeficiente intelectual baixo.
01:11
Imagine: Many of these problems could be prevented
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Imaxinade que moitos destes problemas
puidesen evitarse
01:14
if these babies were just kept warm.
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se mantivésemos a estes bebés quentes.
01:17
That is the primary function of an incubator.
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Esa é a función principal da incubadora,
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But traditional incubators require electricity
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mais a tradicional precisa electricidade
01:21
and cost up to 20 thousand dollars.
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e custa ata 20 mil dólares.
Nas zonas rurais dos países
en vías de desenvolvemento non as teñen.
01:24
So, you're not going to find them in rural areas of developing countries.
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01:27
As a result, parents resort to local solutions
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Entón, os pais recorren a solucións locais
01:30
like tying hot water bottles around their babies' bodies,
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como rodear os bebés
con bolsas de auga quente
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or placing them under light bulbs like the ones you see here --
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ou colocalos baixo lámpadas coma estas...
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methods that are both ineffective and unsafe.
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Estes métodos
non son eficaces nin seguros.
01:39
I've seen this firsthand over and over again.
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Puiden velo unha chea de veces.
01:42
On one of my first trips to India, I met this young woman, Sevitha,
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Nunha das primeiras viaxes á India,
coñecín a Sevitha,
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who had just given birth to a tiny premature baby, Rani.
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unha moza que dera a luz a Rani,
un bebé prematuro e diminuto.
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She took her baby to the nearest village clinic,
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Levouno á clínica da vila máis próxima
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and the doctor advised her to take Rani
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e o doutor aconsellou levalo
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to a city hospital so she could be placed in an incubator.
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ao hospital da cidade
para metelo na incubadora.
01:58
But that hospital was over four hours away,
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Pero este hospital quedaba a 4 horas
02:01
and Sevitha didn't have the means to get there,
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e Sevitha non tiña os medios para ir,
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so her baby died.
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así que o seu bebé morreu.
02:06
Inspired by this story, and dozens of other similar stories like this,
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Inspirados por esta historia
e por moitas outras similares,
02:09
my team and I realized what was needed was a local solution,
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o meu equipo decatouse
de que se precisaba unha solución local,
02:12
something that could work without electricity,
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algo que funcionase sen electricidade,
02:14
that was simple enough for a mother or a midwife to use,
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doado de usar para unha nai ou comadroa,
02:17
given that the majority of births still take place in the home.
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xa que moitos bebés
continúan nacendo nas casas.
02:20
We needed something that was portable,
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Algo que fose portátil,
02:22
something that could be sterilized and reused across multiple babies
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que puidese esterilizarse e reutilizarse,
02:25
and something ultra-low-cost,
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e de moi baixo custo
02:27
compared to the 20,000 dollars
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comparado cos 20 mil dólares
02:29
that an incubator in the U.S. costs.
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que unha incubadora custa nos EE. UU.
02:32
So, this is what we came up with.
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E isto é o que creamos.
02:34
What you see here looks nothing like an incubator.
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Nada que ver cunha incubadora,
02:36
It looks like a small sleeping bag for a baby.
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parece un saco de durmir,
02:39
You can open it up completely. It's waterproof.
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podes abrilo de todo, é impermeable,
02:42
There's no seams inside so you can sterilize it very easily.
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non ten costuras,
así que é doado de esterilizar.
02:45
But the magic is in this pouch of wax.
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Pero o truco está nesta bolsa de cera.
02:49
This is a phase-change material.
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É un material que cambia de fase.
02:51
It's a wax-like substance with a melting point
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A substancia é parecida á cera e derrete
02:53
of human body temperature, 37 degrees Celsius.
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aos 37 ºC, a temperatura corporal humana.
02:56
You can melt this simply using hot water
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Derrete con auga quente
02:59
and then when it melts it's able to maintain one constant temperature
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e unha vez derretida mantén
unha temperatura constante
03:03
for four to six hours at a time,
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durante 4 ou 6 horas
03:05
after which you simply reheat the pouch.
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e despois volves quentar a bolsa.
03:08
So, you then place it into this little pocket back here,
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Colócala neste peto traseiro
03:15
and it creates a warm micro-environment
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e crea un microclima cálido
03:17
for the baby.
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para o bebé.
03:20
Looks simple, but we've reiterated this dozens of times
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Parece sinxelo
pero repetímolo moitas veces.
03:24
by going into the field to talk to doctors, moms and clinicians
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Falamos con doutores,
nais e médicos clínicos
03:27
to ensure that this really meets the needs of the local communities.
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para cumprir as necesidades
das comunidades locais.
03:30
We plan to launch this product in India in 2010,
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Queremos presentalo na India en 2010
03:33
and the target price point will be 25 dollars,
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e o prezo é de 25 dólares,
03:37
less than 0.1 percent of the cost
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menos do 0,1% do custo
03:39
of a traditional incubator.
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dunha incubadora tradicional.
03:42
Over the next five years we hope to save the lives
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En 5 anos esperamos salvar as vidas
03:44
of almost a million babies.
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de case un millón de bebés.
03:46
But the longer-term social impact is a reduction in population growth.
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O impacto a longo prazo
é a redución do crecemento demográfico.
03:49
This seems counterintuitive,
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Parece contraditorio
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but turns out that as infant mortality is reduced,
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pero ao reducir a mortalidade infantil,
03:54
population sizes also decrease,
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tamén diminúe a poboación,
03:56
because parents don't need to anticipate
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xa que os pais non teñen que prever
03:58
that their babies are going to die.
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que os seus bebés van morrer.
04:00
We hope that the Embrace infant warmer
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Esperamos que o quentador Aperta
04:03
and other simple innovations like this
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e outras innovacións parecidas
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represent a new trend for the future of technology:
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creen tendencia no futuro da tecnoloxía:
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simple, localized, affordable solutions
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solucións doadas, adaptadas e accesibles
04:12
that have the potential to make huge social impact.
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que teñan un efecto enorme na sociedade.
04:15
In designing this we followed a few basic principles.
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Para o deseño
seguimos uns principios básicos:
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We really tried to understand the end user,
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tratamos de entender ao usuario final,
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in this case, people like Sevitha.
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neste caso, xente como Sevitha,
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We tried to understand the root of the problem
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tratamos de entender a raíz do problema
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rather than being biased by what already exists.
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e non condicionarnos polo que xa existe,
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And then we thought of the most simple solution we could
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e logo pensamos na solución máis sinxela
04:31
to address this problem.
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para abordar este problema.
04:33
In doing this, I believe we can truly bring technology to the masses.
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Coido que realmente podemos achegar
a tecnoloxía ás masas.
04:37
And we can save millions of lives through the simple warmth of an Embrace.
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E podemos salvar millóns de vidas
grazas á calor dunha Aperta.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jane Chen - Social entrepreneur
TED Fellow Jane Chen has spent years working on health issues in the developing world.

Why you should listen

Jane Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Embrace, a social enterprise that aims to help the millions of vulnerable babies born every year in developing countries through a low-cost infant warmer. Unlike traditional incubators that cost up to $20,000, the Embrace infant warmer costs around $200. The device requires no electricity, has no moving parts, is portable and is safe and intuitive to use.

Chen received her Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to her graduate studies, Jane was the Program Director of Chi Heng Foundation, a nonprofit organization that sponsors the education of children affected by AIDS in central China. She was also formerly a management consultant at Monitor Group.

In 2009, Chen was a TEDIndia Fellow

More profile about the speaker
Jane Chen | Speaker | TED.com