Meg Wirth is a Changemaker

The website Maternova.net, one of two early entry prizewinners in the Healthy Mothers, Strong World competition, promotes technologies for maternal and neonatal health such as a solar-powered headlamp that provides ample light for night deliveries, or a calibrated bag that measures blood loss during labor. Maternova provides simple solutions with transformative possibilities for developing communities by shedding light on the latest technologies and giving professionals a go-to site for inspiration.

Meg Wirth, a Providence, RI-based women's health professional, created the website as an online resource where midwives, nurses, policymakers, and innovators can connect to exchange information and discover lifesaving new ideas in areas such as transportation, water, and design.

"We'd like the site to be a place where teams of social entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, business school and medical students can get ideas—to see what has already been done, and to develop ideas exactly where they are needed," Wirth said. 

After just six months of operation, Maternova.net has attracted active visitors from 72 countries, and is being positioned as the quintessential interactive hub for an emerging population of global maternal health workers.

"There is a large global effort to increase the number of skilled birth attendants, and to train mid-level clinicians," Wirth said. "We should all be thinking of this enormous, largely female, skilled workforce as an economic engine and as the key to a healthy next generation. Part of what they'll need is the best ideas and techniques prioritized and packaged in the most efficient way, and they'll need to communicate with each other and with trusted sources."