By Ola Kay
Enginerr Kemisola Bolarinwa, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of Nextwear Technologies, has invented a smart bra that helps diagnose an early-stage breast cancer complications.
Bolarinwa is a Nigerian robotics and embedded systems engineer, whose invention became known around the world in February, 2022, when she designed the prototype of the smart bra, which was motivated by the death of her launt in 2017.
Prior to the incident ,the inventor said she never paid any special attention to the issue of breast cancer except hear about it in the media. She revealed how she was spurred to invent the smart bra, after frequent visits to the hospital where her loved one was receiving treatment before she died.
She also disclosed how she spent more than a year of rigorous research before the smart bra was unveiled in 2019.
So far, Bolarinwa’s contributions to breast cancer solution had been acknowledged by the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Africa.
About how the smart bra works: To detect lumps in the breast, the smart bra repurposes ultrasound technology into a small form factor, with the initiative to shrink down an ultrasound machine to a portable size where it becomes wearable.
The inventor explained that, this was possible with nanotechnology — a branch of science, technology, and engineering that deals with the manufacturing of tech in small sizes.
According to her, for more context, the smart bra uses an ultrasound system called the Doppler that bounces high-frequency sound waves off the body to detect blood clots, heart defects, and blocked arteries.
She stated that this works differently from ultrasound machines that use sound waves to generate images of the scanned area.
On the commercialization of the bra, she said that after years of research and developing a prototype,there are still a lot of work to be achieved on the smart bra before it can be commercialised.
She stressed that her ideas needed more development and extensive clinical trials, while giving a time frame between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 for mass production.
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