People are live in a time, following the recent pandemic, when ‘vaccine’ has become a buzzword, at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
But for Kitty Liao, the founder and CEO of UK company Ideabatic, the fascination began seven years ago, when she decided to set up her award-winning social enterprise and present her first product – the SMILE vaccine cooling system, currently on display at the Expo Live Pavilion – The Good Place. The best way to explain how SMILE works is to describe the problems it addresses.
“I participated in a humanitarian hackathon event while I was working at CERN [the European Organisation for Nuclear Research], and it was the first time I was exposed to all of these critical problems with delivering vaccines to the remote areas of middle- to low-income countries,” Liao explains. “I was shocked, because many vaccines are spoiled before they reach their destination, which can often take days, due to the terrain. As a result, there are millions of people dying from easily-preventable diseases, through not receiving vaccines, with as many as 50 per cent going to waste.”
Vaccines tend to be taken on foot to remote areas, with the current carrying solutions less than ideal. “It’s essentially a cool box, like something you might take camping or to a picnic,” says Liao.
“It uses brick-style ice packs, but it’s never really the right temperature [between 2 and 8°C needs to be maintained], and if the ice pack is in direct contact with the vaccine, it freezes it. The risk of spoiling a vaccine is very high, and I thought, with my background in electronic engineering and physics, and years of working with cold systems, maybe I could find a better solution.”
The result is the SMILE system, which has already won 17 innovation awards globally, with funding provided by the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering and InnovateUK and Expo Live – Expo 2020’s global innovation and partnership programme supporting innovative, creative solutions that are making a real impact on people’s lives and helping communities across the world build a brighter future. A prototype is on display at The Good Place as part of Expo Live, alongside the work and ideas of all 140 Expo Live Global Innovators from 76 countries.
“It’s a hexagonal case, with a wheel, like a carousel, inside, and you spin it to locate the chamber with the vaccine you wish to administer,” says Liao, describing the SMILE system. “It has a self-closing door that you open to remove the vaccine vial you need, and we made it this way to remove the element of human error, because another issue with the cool box is that it can be left open – people might get distracted, administering a vaccine, and then all the others are ruined.
“And rather than multiple ice packs, we have a large cylindrical version that slots into the carousel design, which can keep the vaccines at the right temperature for up to six days.” The system is neat and simple, and can be carried inside a backpack, rather than an awkward crossbody or via a handle – an issue when trying to navigate rivers or rocky terrain, for example.
Liao has successfully field-tested the SMILE system with medical officers in Madagascar, but still faces challenges in terms of finding the right investors and partners to help fund and introduce the idea to the relevant organisations around the world that can put it to use. This is where she says Expo can help.
“I think Expo raises more awareness, and we can encourage more people to support this kind of project, and encourage innovation,” says Liao. “The people I’ve met seem really interested, so this is a great platform.”
One of the visitors asking questions was Microsoft founder, humanitarian and philanthropist Bill Gates, who visited Expo earlier this week. “He wanted to know how the vaccines are loaded, and how we stop them from freezing,” Liao explains.
“He made the point that this solution is likely to be more expensive than the current cool box-type unit, which is true, but if you take into account wastage, and eliminating that, you’re already saving millions.” Perhaps stories of interest from the world’s fourth-richest man can help Liao secure the funding and partners she needs to give full production the green light. But it has not stopped her coming up with more ideas in the meantime.
“With the current SMILE, we’re always developing, there’s always R&D,” she says. “Like we’re talking about an electronic add-on that shows temperature information, and also estimates how long the ice pack can maintain it for, so you know how many more villages you can reach, or if you need to change it. And it will have tracking built-in too. We might produce units in a few different sizes as well.”
Expo Live hosts innovations and ideas from every corner of the globe, with many now on show at The Good Place. The programme received more than 11,000 applications from 184 countries, and is currently supporting 140 grantees from 76 countries – of which Ideabatic’s SMILE is just one.
Delroy Constantine-Simms
