Lumisoap

Inspiration

In the Freakonomics podcast "The Most Ambitious Thing Humans Have Ever Attempted," sanitation and insufficient hand washing techniques has been addressed as one of the biggest issues facing patients. The reason being is that there is not enough of an incentive for practitioners to practice proper hand-washing techniques and habits in their busy and overwhelming schedules. As a group of freshman iBioBroskis, we believe that providing a way for patients to see the quality of their hand washing habits can help both the practitioners and patients improve their cleanliness and limit complications associated with common germs.

How It Works

Lumisoap is a simple, realistic idea that involves adding a safe and nonpermanent fluorescent dye into regular hand-soap seen in hospitals today. With the addition of this soap and UV-A black-lights, patients and practitioners will be able to easily see how effective they have been in washing their hands.

Challenges We ran into

The challenges we ran into included the following: 1) Toxicity and potential harm to user 2) Finding a way to indicate progress in hand-washing... We also explored pH, and metabolic byproducts of bacteria that could be tagged.

Accomplishments that We're proud of

We are very proud of tacking a major issues and coming up with a simple yet effective solution and incentive. We are also proud to have participated meaningfully in our first hackathon.

What We learned

We learned how to think outside of the box and how to apply lenses from a variety of disciplines. As said in the opening ceremony, all problems today require interdisciplinary input. We will use the brain-storming strategy of identifying problems and then coming up with a feasible solution. In addition, we discovered the wonders of caffeine: Redbull gives you wings!

What's next for Lumisoap

We are–without a doubt–certain that Lumisoap will be integrated in the repertoire of healthcare facilities across the globe. We believe that simplicity and creativity drive innovation, and with Lumisoap, we will change the world.