2024 Global Health Equity Challenge
Digital Interactive Rehabilitation System
What is the name of your solution?
Digital Interactive Rehabilitation System
Provide a one-line summary of your solution.
Digireha is a tool for people with special needs, that aims to maximize the effectiveness of rehabilitation by maximizing users’ engagement.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Tokyo, JapanIn what country is your solution team headquartered?
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Currently, it is reported that 16% of the world's population has some form of disability. Furthermore, the number of people requiring rehabilitation continues to increase due to an ageing population and changing lifestyles. It reaches 2.4 billion people in the world (WHO).
While the international need for rehabilitation is growing, the following challenges are also becoming more obvious:
-Insufficient availability of rehabilitation services:
Lack of rehabilitation opportunities in low and middle-income countries as well as urban areas in developed countries
-Difficulty in maintaining motivation: Therapeutic sessions are often made of Range of Motion exercises and Neuro-Developmental Therapies (NDT), which tend to be monotonous. People with special needs are treated in a 'passive' way in the sessions.
-Lack of quantitative assessment and intervention: Qualitative assessment/intervention is mainly based on the experience of practitioners. It often lacks a scientific basis.
What is your solution?
Digireha (Digital Interactive Rehabilitation System) is a tool developed by rehabilitation professionals ( e.g., occupational therapists and physical therapists) to maximize the effectiveness of rehabilitation. Our service includes:
・More than 30 applications that utilize gamification to facilitate a better and easy understanding of the users, which increases their engagement
・Sensing technology (5 types of sensors) that can be customized for each user according to their own characteristics and needs
・Database that enables us to collect and analyze rehabilitation-related data
Our platform (Digireha BASE) integrates these functions above and delivers them to customers as a single package. This service offers a game-like experience for children with special needs, enabling them to engage in training that will be optimized for their needs even in area without medical resources.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our main target group is children with special needs, including physical and learning disabilities. According to the WHO, there are 240 million children worldwide with some form of disability, which can lead to lost opportunities for early stimulation and stunt their physical and intellectual growth. In many communities, it is difficult to identify children with special needs and to provide appropriate care for them. This is partly due to a lack of public service resources and partly because families do not have the money to travel to rehabilitation centres. In Japan, economic disadvantages have also been identified, such as parents having to take time off work to go to the hospital for rehabilitation. In addition, more common approaches for therapeutic sessions are often monotonous, such as stretching. Improving the quality of rehabilitation is also an issue.
Digireha has a database that not only allows children to participate in rehabilitation enjoyably, but also facilitates evidence-based service delivery. In the longer term, we will also create an environment where children in rural areas can use Digireha in the comfort of their homes/their local communities and receive appropriate care.
How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
We are a hybrid team of families raising children with special needs and medical/social service practitioners (occupational therapists, physical therapists, social workers, etc.). We have insights gained from a deep understanding of our client's needs in their daily lives and the medical and social welfare settings. We also have an engineering team that turns that insight into products, enabling us to efficiently develop needs-driven services.
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Ensure health-related data is collected ethically and effectively, and that AI and other insights are accurate, targeted, and actionable.Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
What is your solution’s stage of development?
GrowthWhy are you applying to Solve?
We are looking to expand internationally including in the U.S. We have already begun discussions with several hospitals and research institutions in the U.S. Therefore, we are strongly seeking to network with VCs and entrepreneurs both in the U.S. and abroad. Also, support for impact measurement and monitoring is helpful due to the area of disability, where statistical information is difficult to obtain.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Yuki Oka
What makes your solution innovative?
It is the only service in the market that does not focus on a specific target disease. With a wide variety of customizations and sensors, we can obtain a large market size.
In addition, we will be able to provide evidence-based and individually optimized content over the long term by developing and enhancing the database. In the long term, by possessing big data related to people with rehabilitation needs, we will turn 2.4 billion people with a form of disability into a large market around the world.
Describe in simple terms how and why you expect your solution to have an impact on the problem.
Through the delivery of Digireha, we will create the following changes. First, as an output, we will collect sensor data based on physical and cognitive functions during rehabilitation that are linked to each end user.
The output is to develop big data that includes longitudinal information on each person with special needs from childhood to adulthood. For this, Digireha should be introduced at educational institutions, welfare facilities such as daycare centers and employment support centers, as well as a hospital.
In the short term, our goal is that this data will enable evidence-based services to be provided in any facility for granted. In addition, in the mid-to-long-term, we will promote the development of new products and services using the same big data to boost the market of people with special needs. We aim to create an environment in which people with special needs can enjoy socially and culturally autonomous lifestyles.
What are your impact goals for your solution and how are you measuring your progress towards them?
- Number of indicators stored in the database related to physical, and cognitive features (validated by scientific approaches)
- Number of end-users linked to the database,
- Market share of end-users
- Number of offices introducing the product
- Number of new products utilizing big data
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
The three core technologies we are currently developing are
(1) A database that can acquire and record quantitative data with high validity and reliability, including standardized evaluation indicators for various disabilities, and link it to long-term outcomes for analysis.
(2) A monitoring function that displays the engagement level of children with special needs in real-time, which has traditionally depended on the perceptions of support staff.
(3) A content generation and adjustment model that maintains a high level of engagement of people with special needs over a long period by their characteristics.
The implementation of these features will enable anyone to provide a high level of evidence-based support in the medical, welfare, and educational facilities.
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new application of an existing technology
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
If your solution has a website or an app, provide the links here:
https://www.digireha.com/en/
In which countries do you currently operate?
Which, if any, additional countries will you be operating in within the next year?
How many people work on your solution team?
We are a team of 11 people (1 full-time: 9 part-time: 2). We are made up of families raising children with special needs and health care practitioners.
How long have you been working on your solution?
We started our product development as a non-profit organization in 2017; in April 2021 we have become a corporation and are launched our products.
Tell us about how you ensure that your team is diverse, minimizes barriers to opportunity for staff, and provides a welcoming and inclusive environment for all team members.
As mentioned above, we are a team of 11 people (1 full-time: 9 part-time: 2). We are made up of families raising children with special needs and health care practitioners. Eight of us are women, one of whom oversees the entire company as a Director of Operations. Members work from different regions and countries, with the option of working completely remote . The company also has a flexible work schedule and offers the same benefits as regular employees to staff whose family circumstances make it difficult for them to work a five-day work week.
What is your business model?
We are currently in the B2B subscription business. Our main customers are; -rehabilitation departments of hospitals,
-daycare centers for children with special needs,
-special needs schools.
In those facilities, customers pay for subscription fee for access to the service platform and applications.
Our product is not a medical device. So it has no medical treatment effect or diagnostic function in itself. Instead, it can be flexibly deployed as a tool in various forms of facilities. In the future, we plan to develop B2C services. Through the B2C service, end-users will be able to receive integrated rehabilitation both at the facility and at home.
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?
Organizations (B2B)What is your plan for becoming financially sustainable, and what evidence can you provide that this plan has been successful so far?
We have raised a total of approximately 1.1M USD in seed and pre-series A rounds from VCs to date. We will continue to raise funds in preparation for our planned IPO in 2030. We plan to return to profitability through sales in FY2027, including expansion in international markets.
Solution Team
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Kanako Nakamura Ms, Digireha, Inc.
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Our Organization
Digireha, inc.