CUHK
News Centre

Two baby-care mobile apps ‘BBGuide’ and ‘Dr. B’ are two of the ten technological research projects which The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) will showcase at the coming International ICT Expo 2019 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from 13 to 16 April. The two apps have been developed by a CUHK start-up team, which aim to use artificial intelligence and collaborate with paediatric experts to help new parents to solve daily problems. BBGuide is also one of the five finalists in the CUHK Entrepreneurship Competition and will compete for the championship at the CUHK Entrepreneur Day 2019 to be held from 10 to 11 May. 

Four post-90s teenagers, Bosco YAM, Peter SO, Ray CHIU, alumni from the Department of Information Engineering, CUHK, and Alice TSANG, from the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, assembled the start-up team Bulb Inno before their graduation in 2018. From then, the team incubated in CUHK’s Pre-incubation Centre (Pi Centre), the first university-wide student entrepreneurial initiative in Hong Kong. They enjoyed Pi Centre’s free working space, facilities, software resources and professional mentorship that helped them to develop the product and service as well as to get ready for launching into the market. Since 2014, Pi Centre has so far cultivated 50 teams with aspirations to start a business, some of which have graduated and gone into entrepreneurial parks such as Science Park or Cyberport.

Bosco YAM said, “The greatest advantage of joining Pi Centre is to know other entrepreneurs who share the same passion, so that the arduous road to entrepreneurship is no longer lonely. We interact and share in a good atmosphere of innovation and entrepreneurship, and we establish a strong network, which is especially important for start-up companies.” 

BBGuide – A Virtual Early Childhood Development Expert 

Taking care of a newborn baby is never an easy task. It is particularly difficult for new parents to tackle the baby’s crying, diet and health, as well as infancy development issues. In addition to traditional wisdom of the previous generations, new parents nowadays are using new technology to assist them. There are many baby-care mobile applications available, but they are nothing more than baby growth records, baby guides, and group discussions. Very few can proactively make personalised recommendations. 

BBGuide serves like an expert in early childhood development. Since its inception in mid-January, over 1,200 users have downloaded it. There are four important fields for the growth and development of a 0 to 3 years old baby – movement, cognition, language and social. New parents often fail to take care of their baby’s developmental needs holistically. According to BBGuide’s analytical data in these four fields, some babies have developmental delay. 28% have failed to reach the milestones in the language field, 26% have delayed social development, 19% are delayed in movement, and 16% in the  cognitive field. 

BBGuide is able to record baby’s all-round growth and development progress systematically, and to visualise the growth data in order to build baby’s growth profile. Hence, parents can easily grasp baby’s development progress. Moreover, with the help of an artificial intelligent analytic system, BBGuide can analyse baby’s growth data and give intimate parenting tips and reference articles every week. New features to be added in the next phase include personalised parent-child tasks and toy referrals based on each baby’s growing needs, giving every baby an unique growth training and care. 

Experts have joined the start-up team as consultants to provide professional guidance and valuable advice. They are Dr. FUNG Wai Ching, Specialist in pediatrics ; Miss Charlotte CHAN, Speech therapist; Miss Chloe CHAN, Registered occupational therapist; Miss Phoenix CHU, Education consultant and art educator; Miss CHAN Pui Lin, Principal of Holy Trinity Centre Kindergarten & Nursery; Miss LO Ching Yee, Experienced playgroup tutor.

Miss LO Ching Yee, one of the expert consultants said, “Parents are their children’s first teacher who are responsible for realising their children’s developmental delay problem. However, not every parent can have an expert think tank to advise them. When parents get some available assessment items for developmental reference, most of them do not know how to infer whether the baby has developmental delay. I believe that BBGuide is able to help parents and early childhood educators to identify problems in the early stage. As a result, every child can grow up healthily. Additionally, BBGuide can serve as a reference for parents to keep their children’s individual growth record.”

 Dr. B – A Miniature Paediatrics Physician on Mobile 

In addition to BBGuide, the team is also developing another baby-care mobile app, Dr. B. It has a unique Chatbot function to diagnose baby’s sickness, which serves like a miniature paediatrics physician. By interacting with the parents, Dr. B can automatically list out possible diseases of the baby. Furthermore, parents can also simply input a certain type of sickness, such as ‘diarrhea’. The Chatbot will continue to ask some simple questions. After a round of questions and answers and using artificial intelligence to analyse, it will give out the answer. Dr. B will also respond to the data provided by parents, including: (1) growth record (2) feeding record (3) faeces record, in line with external factors such as seasons and weather. Timely and intimate reminders will be sent regularly. Therefore, Dr. B is able to become the outer defense line of baby’s health. 

The two above-mentioned baby-care mobile apps has been published on Google Play and Apple Store for free download. To know more about these apps and other recent technological projects, please visit CUHK’s booth at the International ICT Expo (Booth No.: 3F-E16).