Breakthrough Mosquito Technology Kite Patch™ Moves One Step Closer to Market Roll-Out
Riverside, California (PRWEB) September 10, 2013 -- • Kite Patch™ crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo raises $557,254 to advance product development and fuel large field test in Uganda that will include over 6.7 million hours of testing in malaria-impacted districts;
• Kite Patch being developed for consumer markets and global health priorities;
• Campaign held ‘#1 most popular campaign’ for four of its six weeks.
Innovation Economy Crowd (ieCrowd), a company focused on transforming innovations into global solutions, today released details of its recently concluded top-ranked Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign and the next stage of development for the Kite Mosquito Patch (“Kite Patch”) and the Kite technology platform.
ieCrowd’s 45-day crowdfunding campaign, designed to enable the crowd to participate in the development of a new approach in the fight against mosquito-borne diseases, raised over 740% of its $75,000 funding goal with the support of 11,254 financial backers from around the world. The overwhelming success of the crowdfunding campaign – above and beyond the original goal - has enabled ieCrowd to expand the Kite Patch trials to include over 6.7 million hours of on-the-ground testing in Uganda. A large number of supporters and a robust response by communities on social media sites elevated Kite Patch to become the most popular fundraising campaign on Indiegogo for four weeks of its six-week duration.
Since the conclusion of the campaign, ieCrowd's team has been laying the groundwork for the next phase of development, which will include a field test in three districts in Uganda where malaria rates are often among the highest in the world. To implement the field test, ieCrowd has partnered with Pilgrim Africa, an NGO with operations throughout Uganda and the region. The field test will include more than 140,000 Kite Patches and evaluate use, durability, adaptability, form, and other product parameters. The results of this large, three-month field test will help ieCrowd's product development and science teams further refine and optimize the Kite Patch for its applicability around the world, to include a range of climates, cultures, and economic conditions. ieCrowd and Pilgrim Africa have benefited from close collaboration with the Government of Uganda. As a result, field tests remain on schedule for the later part of January.
Commenting on the conclusion of the Indiegogo campaign, Amro Albanna, ieCrowd’s Chairman and CEO, said: “We are very proud of and grateful for the support we received from the crowd in this campaign. True to ieCrowd’s mission, we asked the crowd to support us in developing this world-changing technology, and they responded with overwhelming generosity, excitement, and optimism. In fact, the success of the Kite Patch campaign is a perfect example of the power of ieCrowd’s model. By working together, and by empowering the crowd, we can transform an innovative discovery into actual market-driven solutions.”
The Kite Patch is being developed by Olfactor Laboratories, Inc. (OLI), an ieCrowd company, and will be the first consumer product using the company’s patent-pending, non-toxic, spatial compounds capable of blocking mosquitoes’ ability to detect carbon dioxide. OLI’s work over the past three years has been supported with business infrastructure from ieCrowd, a grant from the National Institutes of Health, and collaborative agreements with federal agencies and non-profits. OLI is developing a full suite of patent-pending compounds that have been heralded as significant breakthroughs in the fight against mosquito-borne diseases, among other important uses.
OLI’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Michelle Brown, commented, “The comprehensive and invaluable field testing that we are now able to undertake will help us obtain valuable data that will allow us to further optimize Kite Patch. Our next steps include finalization of the first run of Kite Patches and their deployment to the field test in Uganda. We anticipate our field work to begin in January,” she said. “Our team is energized by the response from so many people. We take very seriously the fact that we’re stewards of a new technology and approach that will benefit everyone around the world.”
This campaign is supporting the development of the first version of the Kite Patch, which is focused on generating a ‘personal cloud’ capable of repelling mosquitoes for up to 48 hours. However, OLI’s work extends to additional technologies being developed that form a comprehensive suite of tools in the global fight against mosquito-borne diseases.
“Repelling mosquitoes away from humans is only one step of a broader effort we’re conducting. We’re looking forward to announcing a number of new developments soon that will highlight the power of ieCrowd’s approach and the great work being done at OLI,” Brown concluded.
• Pilgrim Africa’s full report on the scale of the malaria problem in Uganda can be found here: http://www.pilgrimafrica.org/malaria-free-uganda/the-challenge/
• Further information regarding the Kite Mosquito Patch can be found at http://www.kitepatch.com.
• Further information about ieCrowd can be found at http://www.iecrowd.com.
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Media contacts:
North America:
Mark Button
+1 (503) 616 3817
mbutton(at)tankdesign(dot)com
Europe:
Joshua Van Raalte
+1 (718) 340-3559
jvanraalte(at)tankdesign(dot)com
General/Rest of World:
Katherine Lavender
klavender(at)tankdesign(dot)com
+44 (0) 207 785 7383
Editor notes:
About Innovation Economy Crowd (ieCrowd): ieCrowd, located in Riverside, California, transforms innovations into global solutions using the power of the crowd. With a philosophy of “Doing Good and Doing Well, Together,” ieCrowd’s mission is to acquire innovative assets and transform them into market-driven solutions powered by passionate entrepreneurs – all with the goal of harnessing the social and economic benefits of building innovative companies capable of enhancing the lives of people around the world. Further information can be found at http://www.iecrowd.com.
Mark Button, Tank, http://www.iecrowd.com/, +1 (503) 616 3817, [email protected]
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