Business of Baby (BOB) is a platform for parents and carers which notifies them of the health, education and government administrative tasks required for their child from birth until school age. A geo-location mechanic connects them to the right organisation in a timely manner with a brief instruction of what to do to complete the task. Its primary manifestation is as a mobile application.
What’s the problem BOB is trying to solve?
When a baby joins a family, the health, administrative and education tasks come thick and fast; around 50 milestones need tending to before the child even starts school.
Tasks traverse all levels of government, as well as private service providers and include registering the birth, maternal health checks, parental leave applications, child care arrangements and vaccinations.
Unfortunately, there isn’t an instruction book in sight.
Considering there are 1.6m children in Australia under the age of six, there are some busy and very confused parents and carers out there!
BOB is an easy to use application; once installed, it’s as simple as registering a child’s name, date of birth and postcode to get started. BOB holds very little personal information, just enough to give the user what they need.
Notifications will inform you of upcoming tasks as any alert would on your phone. These prompts can be shared with other parents and carers – allowing for task management between family members. Users can choose to address the task immediately, find out more, or elect to be reminded later.
BOB then connects the user to the right place within the maze of government websites to help parents and carers execute each task in a timely manner. It provides further explanation and references to better understand the context and need of each task.
Once completed, tasks are archived for future reference.
In 2018, Founder Sharon Behen won an incubator competition called Brainbox. Her idea? Business of Baby. It was born from a need to help parents and carers navigate the - often confusing – multi-level system of government and private service providers. While on maternity leave herself, she experienced many pain points first-hand and went on a journey of solution creation; mapping milestones, talking to mums and government agencies and finally, prototyping ideas.
Business of Baby now streamlines the process of child administration, allowing for fuss-free navigation of these tasks without the angst of missing a milestone. It also allows government agencies to reduce the time spent reminding parents and carers of their obligations and focusing public money and resources on the fundamentals of health and education provision.
