Measure how clean your teeth are from the comfort of your own home

Challenges

It was a shared vision to make healthcare more accessible, affordable, and meaningful through using technology that inspired two university friends to set up their own business.

Hawaa Budraa and Gina Dorodvand met in their final year at City, University of London where they were both studying Biomedical Engineering. They gelled through a desire to attain a first and realised they had a similar style of working and aspiration to make a change in the world with their skills.

They set up Onaria Technologies to create intelligent technology that would support people’s self-care and wellness goals.

Their first product was inspired by Hawaa’s sister who was rejected from having a brace because the plaque on her teeth was too high. So Onaria Technologies created uunn, the world’s first digital plaque detector for your teeth.

Background

The Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 estimated that oral diseases affected at least 3.58 billion people worldwide, with decay of the permanent teeth being the most prevalent of all conditions assessed. Problems caused by plaque-build up is preventable if we keep our plaque levels low enough, But the problem is that, there is no way to really know if your teeth are clean unless you visit a dentist, which is only a handful of days in a year at most.

“Knowing exactly where the plaque is located on our teeth means we can focus our brushing and flossing efforts on those areas and remove it” explained Hawaa, co-founder and CEO. “That’s why we created uunn, so for the first time in history, people can know how clean their teeth are, from the comfort of their own home, in-between dentist appointments”

Slide the uunn lens over your phone to allow the app to access your camera, take three photos of your teeth and let the uunn algorithm analyse your teeth to let you know whether your plaque levels are low enough and exactly where your plaque is, so you can place your toothbrush there, to remove it.

It was hard creating a technology that doesn’t exist that’s reliable and fits into your life. Hundreds of people tested the uunn app and lens leading to several new versions of software to get it right.

Solution

Since joining forces, Hawaa and Gina have been based at the City Launch Lab, the start-up incubator for student and graduate entrepreneurs. Not only has it helped them kick start their business, it has also provided them with a base from where they can conduct market research, user testing and investor meetings.

Located in central London, it’s a great place to meet like-minded people, entrepreneurs and mentors, as well as recruit staff and run pop-up events.

Having a stable but inspirational work base means the business women can concentrate on their long term strategy for uunn, which is to close the loop between the home care routine, dental appointments and products.

By changing people’s relationships with their own teeth, shifting the mindset from cure to prevention, Hawaa and Gina’s goal is a world full of people diving into life, chin up and smiling.

Future plans and benefits

Once uunn becomes part of people’s every day dental routine, the aim is to use the technology to help people further. Plaque data saved on the app could be shared with a dentist before an appointment, meaning personalised visits.

uunn’s mission is to make dental care meaningful, accessible and affordable. uunn will continue to be shaped by users, to be something that they find valuable using such as the potential of connecting their plaque data with an electric toothbrush, to allow a more personalised brushing experience.

Hawaa and Gina aren’t limiting the possibility of where uunn can grow as a platform. Having trialled the app and lens on 400 people they plan to continue to grow their user base community and be the one-stop place for dental care.

But that’s just the start. Expect to see more AI-powered solutions to support self-care and wellness goals from these two business women who want to change and improve people’s lives with the power of technology.