By Uche Amunike
A Nigerian robotics and embedded systems engineer, Kemisola Bolarinwa, has invented a smart bra that can diagnose the early stages of breast cancer, before the symptoms develop.
Motivated by the death of her aunt in 2017, Bolarinwa designed the prototype of the smart bra, in February 2022. According to her, before her aunt’s death, she hardly paid any attention to breast cancer, as it was something she only heard of, either on the TV or the radio.
She is the founder and CEO of Nextwear Technologies, which is the first wearable technology startup in Nigeria. According to her, she was motivated to invent the smart bra, after constant visits to the hospital where her aunt was admitted before her death.
She indicated that she intensified efforts on the invention, after witnessing other women battle breast cancer. BBC Africa recognized her invention after she spent a year and a half doing intense research, before the smart bra came up in 2019.
Kemisola Bolarinwa also stated that the smart bra repurposes ultrasound technology into a small form factor in order to detect lumps in the breast. By this action, it shrinks down an ultrasound machine to a portable size where it becomes wearable.
This, she said, is possible with nanotechnology, which is a branch of science, technology and engineering that deals with the manufacturing of tech in small sizes. The smart bra uses an ultrasound system known as the Doppler, which bounces high frequency sound waves off the body in order to detect blood clots, heart defects and blocked arteries. This, she said, works differently from ultrasound machines that use sound waves to generate images of the scanned area.
As for the commercialization of the breast cancer bra, Kemisola Bolarinwa revealed that even after years of research and developing a prototype, there is still a lot of work needed to be done before it can be achieved.
She explained that the smart bra still needed further development and extensive clinical, before it can be considered due for mass production.
Apart from being an inventor, she’s a strong advocate for getting women interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is a passion she has had even while growing up. She also called for more work on research for inventions it will be effective in solving the problems that they are designed for, lamenting that there are no sufficient research organizations to assist on that.
Her words: ‘In four months, a fintech platform will be built and be ready for the market. This is one of the reasons why few people play in the hardware or deep tech side of technology in Africa. There aren’t enough research institutes.’
Kemisola Bolarinwa is the president of the Women in ICT Foundation. It is a nonprofit organization that pays great attention to providing technology education, leadership and businesses for women and young girls to resolve problems of the underrepresentation of women in leadership, policymaking and math-intensive fields of science and technology.
