Embrace is a sustainable social enterprise that aims to save vulnerable babies around the world through a low cost infant incubator.  20 million low birth weight and premature babies are born every year, primarily in developing countries.   Many of these babies die or grow up severely ill because they are not able to regulate their own body temperature.  This problem could be prevented with an incubator.  However, traditional incubators in the U.S. cost up $20,000.

The Embrace Infant Warmer is an innovative device that costs $25.  Embrace uses a phase change material incorporated in a sleeping bag design to regulate a baby's temperature. The product requires no electricity, has no moving parts, is portable and is safe and intuitive to use. Our customers will be private and government hospitals, as well as NGOs who can help bring the product into a community setting. We plan to prove the product and business concepts in India, where the largest need for this product exists, and then roll out in the rest of the developing world.

One of the U.N. millennium development goals is the reduction of infant mortality by two-thirds by 2015.  The Embrace incubator will help families save their babies, and governments work towards this goal.  By 2013, Embrace aims to save the lives of 137,000 babies and prevent illness in another 780,000 babies.  This will lead to cost savings of $146 million to governments, and an increase in GDP of $1 billion due to improved health.

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