Costa Rican Alicia Chong Rodríguez is a graduate student at MIT in the program of Integrated Design and Management, she is a co-founder of the startup company named Bloomer Tech (named after women’s rights advocate Amelia Bloomer), which is developing a bra with built-in sensors that monitor heart activity and communicate to a smartphone application via Bluetooth.

She came up with the idea as she was attending a program at Singularity University in Silicon Valley, Chong and four of her classmates – Ana Karen Ramírez from Mexico, Monica Abarca from Perú, Einstein Ntim from the UK and Liddy Figueroa from Dominican Republic, started doing some research about body sensors that could be used for data collection on cardiovascular health.

“I have a passion for gender issues and it was hard to find out that there’s a big lack of information to understand why since 1960 the number of men with cardiovascular problems has been decreasing while the number of women with this problem continues to increase”, said Chong.

According to the American Heart Association, heart problems are the main cause of death among women causing 1 of 3 deaths each year, killing approximately one women every 80 seconds.

This is how Bloomer Tech works: The washable, flexible circuits integrated into the bra monitor the heart’s activity (pulse rate, lung sounds, accelerometer, respiratory breathing and heart rhythm), and sends the information to a smartphone using an application via Bluetooth, this information is accessible to the patient and her doctor, allowing to constantly track cardiovascular health.

Bloomer Tech is currently working on the design of their third prototype; the company has been recognized by the Inter-American Development Bank as one of the most innovative and impactful start-up companies in the region when it comes to health technology.