From smart products to smart menopause

After working with consumer facing smart products for more than 15 years, I realized that we had reached an apex in designing new smart technologies. The sensors and actuators we have always dreamed of are inexpensive and readily available. Hardware development is still hard, but it is supported by hardware incubators and production and manufacturing facilities worldwide. With this onset of technology and timing, a plethora of new smart products started emerging on the market, some life-saving, some which simply added some convenience to life, and many which were at best, gadgets which would be thrown away after a novelty use or two. 

Designing for Meaningfulness

I wrote my PhD on Designing for Meaningfulness in Future Smart Products because I saw a gap - a place where there is ample opportunity to create technologies which support people in exploring purpose and meaning in their lives and in leading a meaningful life. While doing this research and still working full time, I ended up in a place of extreme physical stress, which caused me over the period of 4 years to experience symptoms of menopause including loss of menstruation, hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, depression, and changes in body and mind. This might seem altogether too personal to share, but this is exactly when I realized that there was a huge market gap - there are almost no products available for people suffering through these and the other symptoms of menopause. At 39, I have been confirmed as entering menopause, a decade earlier than I should be, and there are no products to support me during this journey. 

Menopause.tech came alive! 

After doing extensive research, my team and I created Menopause.Tech to support other technology developers in understanding and designing for menopause tech - and creating a new paradigm, one in which we overcome the stigma of menopause, and focus on how to help people throughout this extensive period in their life; empowering them to live a more comfortable life. We do this for Diabetics with insulin pens and monitors and dosing systems; we do this for athletes with an endless array of smart workout gear, smart watches, and tools to help them perform their best; we do this for people trying to get pregnant, with fertility monitors, and then for new mothers with smart milk pumps, smart baby wearables, and more. It’s time to do this for menopause. 

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I hope you’ll join me. 

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Vanessa Julia Carpenter, PhD, Founder and Design Researcher, Menopause Tech.