A woman smiles for the camera, leaning against a backdrop with inspirational quotes
Virtue Oboro, who co-founded Tiny Hearts Technology and developed Crib A’Glow, a solar-powered crib that treats jaundiced newborns with phototherapy.

Soon after her son, Tonbra, was born in 2015, Virtue Oboro’s mother noticed the baby’s eyes and skin looked yellow and they rushed him to hospital in Yenagoa, in the southern state of Bayelsa. But three of the hospital’s five phototherapy units for jaundiced babies were faulty and the other two were in use.

Tonbra was eventually found a place in a phototherapy unit but, when there was a power cut, he developed severe jaundice. “He had to have an emergency blood transfusion, which was traumatising. We had to buy blood from an external source, which made us nervous. It was really tough,” says Oboro, 32, a graphic artist and product designer.

Her boy recovered, but the experience inspired Oboro and her husband to form Tiny Hearts Technology, the creators of Crib A’Glow, a solar-powered portable phototherapy crib that treats and monitors jaundiced newborns. So far, about 300,000 babies have been treated directly with the cribs in hospitals and homes in Nigeria and Ghana.

Today, the Tiny Hearts team comprises engineers, designers and paediatricians, and also educates health workers and pregnant women about jaundice, which Oboro believes has saved many more babies. “I didn’t spot the symptoms myself,” she says. “Like many new mothers, I didn’t know about jaundice.”

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