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On April 22nd, we received an email from Dr. Pereira-Smith at Medical University of South Carolina saying that B’ZT had finally been approved by the institution’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). We remember her first call last summer, “I recommend your products to the families [with autistic children] I work with.”
Here is what Wikipedia says about IRBs.
“In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Health and Human Services (specifically Office for Human Research Protections) regulations (see Human subject research legislation in the United States) have empowered IRBs to approve, require modifications in planned research prior to approval, or disapprove research. IRBs are responsible for critical oversight functions for research conducted on human subjects that are “scientific”, “ethical”, and “regulatory”. “
2 days prior to the email, as we know, Apple launched Airtag. We immediately shared the news on LinkedIn saying that it would be an exciting time for B’ZT; if platform companies like Apple and Google (Google-Fitbit) are joining the IoT market, what does B’ZT have to lose? We felt we were at the right place at the right moment.
Then one of my long time friends shared this news “Apple AirTags pulled from sale by Australian store due to child safety concerns” with me today. The first reaction was “What?”
How serious are we?
We often ask ourselves how serious are we about our mission-zero missing people? B’ZT is designed for young kids who wander and get into dangerous situations. CCS in New Zealand said B’ZT was a lifesaver. One of the families that was using a B’ZT T-shirt for their 5-year old child was able to stop her right before she walked toward a highway.
B’ZT is not a gadget that you sometimes use and sometimes don’t. Kid’s safety is serious. That is why we have tried and failed 11 times to come up with the latest version of our locator tag.
Special thanks to Women in Cloud and Microsoft (Microsoft for Startups Program)
