Interview with Hesperian’s Lizzie LaCroix

Despite the technological leaps we witness in the developed world, there are still millions who live in isolation to receive basic medical needs.  Hesperian decided to use mobile apps to help bridge the gap.  Earlier this year, Hesperian’s team ran a successful campaign on StartSomeGood, achieving its tipping point of $6,000.00.  These funds will help develop an app containing information on basic nutrition, pregnancy, emergency guidelines and other basic health information.  Recently, I was able to get in touch with Lizzie LaCroix, the driver of Hesperian’s campaign on StartSomeGood, and ask her a few questions about Hesperian’s success and future.

Do you remember how the mobile app idea came about and what factors helped it become a reality?

The burgeoning field of mobile health has led to numerous projects, platforms, and software all attempting to improve health systems and outcomes. Hesperian noticed that the majority of mHealth projects in the developing world were focusing on data collection, health records, or workflow management and checklists. While all these are trying to fill important gaps, there is a real lack of mobile health projects and apps that provide community health workers with access to information—whether for training purposes, continued learning, helping to explain a difficult or sensitive concept to a client, or for reference in an emergency. Hesperian is widely recognized for our uniquely engaging and accessible health information. As a leader in this area, we were eager to add an app to the mHealth space that provides primary health care content in a way that demystifies health information.

What attributes do you believe make a successful entrepreneur?

Above all else, entrepreneurs must know their target audience — what they need and will use. Hesperian has over 30 years experience collaborating with community health workers to develop content that meets their needs and is presented in a way that helps them to diagnose, treat, and prevent common health problems.

What considerations did you take into the effectiveness of the app, such as range of cell phones and language barriers? 

Creating a health resource for cell phone users in the developing world is a unique challenge. For many of the poorest, most rural places, any kind of app—no matter for what platform it is designed—is out of reach and SMS messaging is the best way to share information. In others, however, people have app capabilities, especially through clinics, NGOs, or even government departments.

We had no doubts that the content would be easily understood and usable for anyone who read it. Our greatest challenge was in choosing and implementing a platform that we thought would make our pilot app an appropriate springboard for adapted local technologies.

Although iPhone apps are technologically complex, they are created with standardized parameters, and all iPhone screens are the same. First, we prepped content for this kind of platform and recruited developers to create it. Next, we plan on turning to Android, which will be more challenging because of the variation of Android screen sizes and devices. But by creating an app for this platform, we will increase the availability of our information exponentially.

Although the app currently exists only in English, Hesperian has a global network of translations partners who can be mobilized to help us adapt Hesperian content in local languages. Currently Hesperian books are available in over eighty languages, and in the long term we look forward to making our app available in even more. We also look forward to “chunking” our health content into more “mobile modules” and hopefully creating additional apps on other topics.

What is in store for the future of this project?  Do you plan on expanding it or are you focusing more on getting the app exposed?

What we at Hesperian are hoping to do is to create content from which other developers can work. What we have is content—excellent content—and we now know how to parse it and arrange it to be used in a mobile platform.

The Safe Pregnancy and Birth app will launch in early 2012 and we will definitely be pushing to get wide exposure. There are a lot of other mHealth apps out there, but as I mentioned earlier, the majority focus on data collection or protocols to help with workflow; very few apps provide lifesaving content for community health workers and the people they are helping. Furthermore, our app is designed to be understandable and usable by people with low literacy and minimal formal education, and no other mHealth app can claim that. 

What was the best part of the campaign?  What was the most difficult part?  Do you have any tips for running a successful campaign on SSG?

The most difficult part for us was getting started. Our app development partners thought that crowdfunding was the way to go to obtain start-up funds for a technology project. Unfortunately, we had no experience running a crowdfunding campaign, and we struggled to market it effectively. We ended up canceling the campaign. However, every new project needs funds, and the pressure to bring in new income was mounting.

The second time around, we mapped out a better outreach calendar and revised our language to be more colloquial in tone. We had learned that SSG isn’t a grant application—it’s about finding and connecting with other people who share our passion for social change.

The best part of our campaign was when a long-time donor of our organization decided to pledge $2,000 and challenge our other donors to match her pledge. She had just returned from a trip to China, where she saw how useful mobile phones could be as learning tools. I think it was her enthusiasm for our cause that also inspired a number of other donors to contribute.

As far as other tips, SSG tells you to have a good video, and I can’t stress the importance of that enough. Our video was the facet of our campaign that seems to have been the most talked about, most shared, and most liked. Although we couldn’t count how many times it was viewed on the SSG website, we know that its views on YouTube skyrocketed once we started marketing our SSG campaign.

Thanks to SSG, we were able to connect with other people who share our passion for Health for All, but whom we might not otherwise have encountered on- or off-line. 

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Benjamin Brower

I grew up and live in a rural area of Southern New Jersey called the Pine Barrens. I went to Gettysburg College where I received my BA in History and French, and studied two semesters in Southern France. My professional career has ranged from weighing trucks at a landfill to teaching English on Réunion Island, a French territory near Madagascar. I recently decided I want to combine my passions of writing and making a difference so I joined the StartSomeGood Blogging Team. I enjoy reading, writing, traveling, hiking, surfing, discussions, and tennis.

Are you inspired by Heperian’s story? Do you have a world changing idea, but need a way to fund it? Learn more about running a campaign on StartSomeGood here.

Image courtesy of Hesperian.org.