iBala: New Armenian startup helps parents stay informed about the baby’s health

Alumnus of the 5th cycle of Armenian Startup Academy, iBala helps parents to be informed about their baby’s health and ensure the baby’s safety.

The app identifies the baby’s cry, cough, sneezing and other sounds and immediately notifies the parents. iBala also has a voice generation tool which helps to calm down the crying baby.

According to iBala founders, these functions come handy when, for instance, has periodic cough or cries for a long time in parents’ absence despite being cared for by a nanny.

The startup’s team is comprised of Karen, Hayk, Shant, Shushan and Michael, and expert Vazgen Mikaelyan provided consulting to improve their algorithms.

The target audience of iBala is parents with children aged 0-3. The team wants to make it possible for parents and babies to stay close when there’s physical distance between them.

The app software can be installed in the surveillance cameras, smart cribs and toys or on the phone, which can be kept near the baby. The app will detect the sounds coming from the baby and encrypt the data, which will be available only to the parents (and people selected by the parents as trusted individuals).

“Our team has seasoned math researches and teachers as well as successful young specialists whose careers started from math contests and continued with significant experience in coding and machine learning. We believe that it has helped us combine theory and practice, research and application, knowledge and experience.

Another specific feature of our team is that we are directly involved in the education system and share our knowledge of mathematics and machine learning with many students and other people. In particular, Karen heads and teaches master’s program for applied statistics and data science, where Michael and Shant are also involved as teachers. Shushan teaches students receiving bachelor’s degree, and Hayk heads and teaches the bachelor’s program for computer sciences at the American University of Armenia,” said the iBala team.

According to them, participation in Armenia Startup Academy’s helped to focus on the business aspect, expand the network of connections in the field from newbies to experts, establish new ties, make friends, and understand better the process of investment and the ways to attract it.

Narine Daneghyan