text: Volunteer Li Zhiai, 30, pumps breast milk to donate, to support breastfeeding at the Guangzhou Women and Children's medical centre in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu On September 20 and 21, MIT will attempt to solve one of biggest issues for working mothers — the breast pump. 
   
   MIT is hosting a "Make the Breast Pump Not Suck" hackathon to improve the design and technology behind breast pumps and make the act of pumping less awkward. 
   
   The site lays out all the current problems with the breast pump: 
   
   The motor is loud. There are too many parts. They are hard to clean. You can't lay down and pump. There is no good space to pump. It's hard to keep track of what you pump. Your colleagues think pumping is weird. People are skeeved out by breastmilk. People are embarrassed by breasts. 
   
   That's why MIT is bringing together 150 engineers, designers, parents, public health researchers, and lactation consultants to brainstorm some new innovations. 
   
   After seeing an article in The New York Times about the lack of innovation in breast pumps, a group of five researchers at MIT got together to take action. 
   
   "Maternal health is a field that has sorely lagged behind, and it affects women's ability to work at the level they want to," Alexandra Metral, a research affiliate at MIT Media Lab Fluid Interfaces Group and one of the hackathon organizers, told Business Insider. "A lot of us were parents ourselves and had bad experiences." 
   
   So they decided to do something about it. 
   
   In May, the five researchers hosted a mini hackathon, where they began throwing around ideas for how to improve the breast pump, but they decided to turn it into a larger hackathon to develop the ideas further. 
   
   Participants at the May hackathon. MIT Media Lab 
   
   At that hackathon, ideas ranged from integrating robotics into breast pumps to how to lower the cost on a global scale. They also discussed how to impact policy so that women have better access to private rooms for breast pumping during the workday. 
   
   Possible innovations include: 
   
   Smarter interfaces and guided experiences: Pumps that can interface with your phone; pumps that can inform mom and also reinforce her commitment to her baby. 
   
   Data collection: Could pumps anonymize and transmit data about the milk collected? This could serve to set a research agenda for breastfeeding research, which is often neglected due to lack of data. ||||| On Sept 20-21, 2014, 150 parents, engineers, designers and healthcare givers gathered at the MIT Media Lab for the "Make the Breast Pump Not Suck" Hackathon. Though the hackathon is over we are still accepting ideas for improving the breast pump. Send them to us here . 
   
   Compress Express : A breast pump that mimics the natural and age-old art of hand expression, instead of archaic vacuum technology that dominates the market. Inspired by the simplicity of blood pressure cuffs, this project's gentle compression technology enables efficient milk expression and creates a discreetly wearable, virtually silent and hands-free breast pumping experience. This project, led by Susan Thompson, has been under development for two years and received the Pioneer Award for early and persistent innovation. Contact the team via Susan Thompson 
   
   Second Nature is a breast pump that mimics the way that a baby suckles with massage and compression. This team also designed soft, low-profile flanges to be worn discreetly. Contact the team via Kristy Johnson 
   
   PumpIO : An open software and hardware platform to make the breast pumping experience smarter, more data-rich and less isolating. PumpIO puts pumping women in touch with lactation consultants and communities as they are pumping, when they have questions and to help reinforce their commitment to their baby. Contact the team via Max Metral 
   
   Helping Hands : a sturdy, easy to clean, minimal parts, hands free compression bra designed by nursing moms. The bra helps women manually express breastmilk (a technique proven to be as effective as electric pumps) without their hands. Contact the team via Katherine Ong 
   
   Mighty Mom utility belt is a fashionable, discrete, hands-free wearable pump that automatically logs and analyses your personal data. Contact the team via Erin Freeburger or Robyn Churchill 
   
   1st Prize, $3000 (sponsored by Vecna Technologies ) and a trip for two team members to Silicon Valley to pitch their ideas to investors (sponsored by Pejman Mar Ventures ) 
   
   We welcome you using these images for your articles and stories. 
   
   You can see all of the awesome projects that were prototyped at the hackathon here on ChallengePost: http://breastpumphackathon.challengepost.com/submissions 
   
   What do you want to accomplish? We want to seed ideas, connections and projects that will make the breast pump experience not suck so much. Covening talented people for a weekend is a first step. We also see this as an opportunity to catalyze innovation in maternal and pediatric health more generally. 
   
   What's a hackathon? A hackathon is a high-energy, collaborative event that seeks to bring together a diverse group of people to explore key issues and challenges in a particular field. Traditionally, hackathons have been mostly technical in nature, focusing on software engineering and, occasionally, on hardware development; our goal is to reach out to a wider range of talents and skills to investigate creative solutions for the maternal and neonatal healthcare space. 
   
   Who's coming? 150 people that will self-organize into teams of 5-10 people per team. For our hackathon teams, we are looking for a mix of breastpump users, engineers, designers, health care and lactation specialists, and educators. Registration is free and open to the public but space is limited. You must register in order to attend and unfortunately all of our space is now full. 
   
   Who organized this? We are a group of MIT Media Lab students and researchers who are also parents: Tal Achituv is a Research Assistant in the Fluid Interfaces group. His background is in hardware and software engineering and he has founded several companies. He is the father of Shira (2), and Lior who was born just last month. (@achituv) Catherine D'Ignazio is a Research Affiliate in the Civic Media group. She is also an Assistant Professor of Civic Media and Data Visualization at Emerson College and a Fellow at the Engagement Lab. Her background is in the arts, data visualization and software development. She likes making fun, magical things with social impact. She has three kids and has pumped for all three. Her youngest is 14 months old and hung out at the Media Lab for the first 6 months of her life. (@kanarinka) Alexis Hope is a Research Assistant in the Civic Media group. Her background is in human-centered design, qualitative research, and maternal health. Prior to coming to the lab, she worked on a project to build a low-cost, easy-to-use ultrasound system for midwives in Kenya and Uganda. She has no kids yet, but hopes that by the time she does there is a better breast pump! (@alexishope) Taylor Levy is a Research Assistant in the Playful Systems group. Her background is in industrial design and graphics. She had a baby named Pau ("POW") just six weeks ago. Alexandra Metral is a Research Affiliate in the Fluid Interfaces group. (The irony of the groupâ€™s name is not lost on her.) She is an artist/designer/local politician/stylist/educator, and also has experience running start-up ventures. Idea Translation, Life-Extension and Fun are common features of her work. She has nursed her three young children, the first with chronic illnesses which presented in nicu. Also pumped for an adopted neighbor. Alexandra and her family are bi-coastal, silicon valley is her other pod. (@alexmetral) Dave Raymond is an honorary member of the Civic Media group and the Director of Training and Business Development for Vecna Technologies. He manages their multimillion dollar digital technology rollout to the VA Hospital System and loves improving health care for veterans. He has three kids and embraces the insanity by playing in a heavy metal band. Che-Wei Wang is a Research Assistant in the Playful Systems group. He is baby Pau's dad and a whiz with hardware design and development. 
   
   Why is this awesome? As one of the midwives at our first hackathon said, "Maternal health lags behind other sectors for innovation." We are bringing together people from diverse fields, sectors and backgrounds to take a crack at making life better for moms, babies and new families. We see our role as a catalyst for new connections and new ideas that will inspire participants and highlight maternal and pediatric health as a vibrant, exciting space to be working in for the design and engineering leaders of tomorrow. 
   
   Why is breastmilk magic? The health benefits of breastfeeding (both to mother and baby!) are numerous and include the reductions of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, female cancers, heart disease and osteoporosis. Despite the overwhelming data and worldwide endorsement of breastfeeding for at least two years, many women do not breastfeed at all or wean after several months. In particular, low-income, working women are rarely able to take extended maternity leave, to afford the cost of a pump, or to pump breastmilk at their workplace. In emerging economies around the world, women who go back to work wean their babies rather than using a breast pump. 
   
   Why does breastpumping suck? Read our blog post about our prior hackathon that went viral. 
   
   I'm a nursing mom/lactation expert. How can I help? The Breast Pump User and Health Care slots are full but there are a couple ways you can still help this effort. Submit your ideas! Click here to send us your best ideas. We are compiling an amazing, open data set of hundreds of creative, awesome ideas from pumping moms (and trans-dads). Teams will be reading about your responses and ideas at the hackathon. Donate your breast pumps. Bring your old pumps to the third floor of the MIT Media Lab, corner of Ames & Amherst St, in Cambridge. There is a donation box for pumps we can use at the hackathon. Get some media attention for the event in your locale. Part of this is about raising the profile of maternal health and bringing public attention to the idea that there are so many ways that our society could better support families and children. Show up. If in Boston, you can come by the hackathon at 5pm on Saturday to give teams feedback on their ideas. You can come listen to the final team pitches from 4pm - 6:30pm on Sunday and see who wins the grand prize, too. Connect with us post-hackathon. We are a little overwhelmed right now but afterwards we will be looking for ways to keep the momentum going. 
   
   I'm a coder/hacker/designer. How can I help? The Engineering and Designer tickets are all sold out, but there are a couple ways to help from afar: Help us analyze and visualize the user-submitted ideas. Do you have data visualization or NLP skills? Email us and we'll send you the data set of amazing, creative ideas submitted by pump users. We'd love some innovative visualizations and ways to group and categorize the unstructured text. We can print out your work to be shown at the hackathon if it helps give insight into the user perspective. Connect with us post-hackathon. We are a little overwhelmed right now but afterwards we will be looking for ways to keep the momentum going. 
   
   What's the structure of the event? Our program will begin with introductions and inspirational talks from our sponsors and guest speakers. Next, hackathon registrants will provide brief â€śrocket pitchesâ€ť about any idea they want to work on, inviting attendees to join their teams and share their skills. Once teams are created, the hacking begins. Problems are explored, ideas are shared, and innovative solutions are crafted. All meals, water, coffee, and tea will be provided to properly fuel our collaboration. We'll also have a bunch of awesome tech on hand - 3D printers, wearable prototyping materials, arduinos, Raspberry Pis and more. What teams create is theirs to keep. At the end of Day 1, each team will provide a brief update of their progress before adjourning for the evening. Additional venues for collaboration will be provided for teams that wish to collaborate past the official Day 1 wrap-up time of 7pm. Day 2 will feature continuing collaboration through most of the day. Teams will present their ideas before a panel of expert judges, who will award prizes for the four most promising projects before the event comes to a close. 
   
   Is it free? Do you have to register? Yes. And Yes. It's free but space, materials and food are limited and we can't allow in people that are not registered. Unfortunately all the slots are now filled and we can't accept any more participants.. 
   
   What are the prizes? First prize - $3,000 (Vecna Technologies) and a trip for two team members to Silicon Valley to pitch your idea to VCs (Pejman Mar Ventures) 
   
   Second prize - $2,000 (Medela) 
   
   Third prize - $1,000 (Naia Health) 
   
   Outstanding User-Focused Design prize - $500 (Moxxly) 
   
   Who is supporting this effort? 
   
   Vecna Technologies, Inc., is a healthcare IT company based in Cambridge MA. Vecna Medical's products include a suite of patient self-service products (Patient Portal, Patient Kiosk, and Patient Queuing), QC PathFinder (electronic infection surveillance software), and QC Bot (healthcare delivery robot). Vecna is sponsoring the First Prize. Pejman Mar Ventures is an investment firm located in Silicon Valley. Pejman Mar Ventures is sponsoring two members of the winning team to fly to Silicon Valley and pitch their idea to investors. Medela, Inc. Founded in 1961 in Zug, Switzerland by Olle Larsson, Medela continues to grow under the ownership of the Larsson family today. Medela serves its customers through 18 subsidiaries distributing to over 90 countries worldwide. Medelaâ€™s U.S. subsidiary, Medela, Inc., has been serving the American market for nearly 30 years. Medelaâ€™s Breastfeeding Division exists to enhance mother and baby health through the life-giving benefits of breastmilk. Our destiny statement guides all that we do, and inspires us to find new ways to support mothers on their breastfeeding journey. Medela is sponsoring the Second Prize. Naia Health Inc., is a seed stage company developing digital, consumer-focused health products that will revolutionize the well-being and lifestyle of mothers and babies. Our initial product is a first-of-kind, radically improved breast pump for nursing moms that is hospital grade, yet fits into your favorite handbag. Naia Health is sponsoring the Third Prize. Lasinoh. Founded by a breastfeeding mom in 1984, Lansinoh has been helping moms breastfeed for more than 30 years. Our family of products is designed for those who know that breastfeeding is one of the greatest gifts they can give their baby, but may need a little help along the way. Lasinoh is underwriting the catering for the event. Simple Wishes was founded in 2008 by four sisters who had a â€śSimple Wishâ€ť...make the experience of using a breast pump easier. Their Signature Hands Free Pumping Bra, is often described as a â€ślifesaverâ€ť. Pumping Essentials is a boutique medical supply business that helps moms navigate the often confusing process of getting their breastpump covered by insurance. Simple wishes and Pumping Essentials are sponsoring scholarships for attendees who work with low-income mothers to be able to attend the event. Moxxly is a consumer products company designing for modern women. We work at the crossroads of user-centered design, branding, and technology to create products that empower women. Our first product is an elegant pump system that allows women to breastfeed with their shirt on while receiving real-time data about their supply. Moxxly is sponsoring a prize for Outstanding User-Focused Design. Mamajamas. The goal of Mamajamas is to help new and expecting parents buy only stuff they need â€” to help them spend less time thinking about stuff and more time enjoying pregnancy and new parenthood. Ameda Inc. Todayâ€™s Ameda breast pumps combine founding engineer Einar Egnellâ€™s innovative technology with the features a 21st century mother expects. Everything Ameda offers â€“ breast pumps and products, breastfeeding education, support of lactation professionals â€“ reflects our passion for breastfeeding. Since 1942, Ameda has been the leading innovator and has delivered unmatched quality and service to lactation professionals, institutions and most importantly, mothers. Ameda is sponsoring scholarships for attendees who work with low-income mothers to be able to attend the event. The MIT Center for Civic Media works hand in hand with diverse communities to collaboratively create, design, deploy, and assess civic media tools and practices. The MIT Center for Bits and Atoms is an interdisciplinary initiative exploring the boundary between computer science and physical science. CBA studies how to turn data into things, and things into data. It manages facilities, runs research programs, supervises students, works with sponsors, creates startups, and does public outreach. iKatun is a non-profit organization that supports cultural events, exhibitions and conferences at the intersection of civic engagement and innovation. iKatun is an organizing partner for this event. 
   
   What if I need financial support to attend? We are pleased to offer hackathon scholarships of $500 to people from the Boston area who can speak to the challenges that lower income women face in breastfeeding or pumping breastmilk for their babies. Scholarship recipients might be parents, pumps users, caregivers, community health providers, or other technical or non-technical professions. Each scholarship recipient receives $500 to cover costs of childcare for the two days and transportation to the event. These scholarships are generously underwritten by Simple Wishes, Pumping Essentials, Mamajamas and Ameda. To apply for a scholarship, write an email to breastpump-organizers@media.mit.edu with a couple sentences describing your how your work engages with lower income breastfeeding or pumping women. Email us at breastpump-organizers@media.mit.edu. ||||| MIT Is Hosting a Breast Pump Hackathon 
   
   Yup, you read that right. 
   
   When the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a competition to improve the condom, it was impressive that an organization decided to take an intimate problem and expose it globally. Now, MIT wants to tackle another under-the-radar, yet needs to be addressed issue—breast pumping. 
   
   MIT says that maternal and neonatal health is a space that “lags behind others” in innovation, and they want to change that. Plus, breast pumping flat-out sucks. As MIT points out on its website: 
   
   The motor is loud. There are too many parts. They are hard to clean. You can’t lay down and pump. There is no good space to pump. It’s hard to keep track of what you pump. Your colleagues think pumping is weird. People are skeeved out by breastmilk. People are embarrassed by breasts. 
   
   Also, let’s not forget that you just pushed a baby out of your body. You’d think that would be the hardest part of being a new mom. But no, then you also have to deal with the annoyances of pumping. 
   
   That’s why the MIT Media Lab is holding a “Make the Breast Pump Not Suck Hackathon” September 20 and 21 in Cambridge, where they’re bringing together 60 to 80 engineers, designers, parents, public health researchers, and lactation consultants to bring innovation to maternal health and make “the breast pump not suck.” 
   
   MIT says on its website that they’re holding the challenge because improving breast pump technology can save lives and money: 
   
   Breast pumping is an experience many women hate, yet it saves the lives of premature babies and permits working women to continue a nursing relationship with their baby. The health benefits of breastfeeding, both to mother and baby, are numerous and include the reductions of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, female cancers, heart disease and osteoporosis. Despite the overwhelming data and worldwide endorsement of breastfeeding for at least two years, many women do not breastfeed or wean after several months. In particular, low-income, working women are rarely able to take extended maternity leave, to afford the cost of a pump, or to pump breastmilk at their workplace. In emerging economies around the world, women who go back to work wean their babies rather than using a breast pump. The breast pump is the rallying cry for the event because it is a symbol of a technology that could be vastly improved in order to save lives, save money and lead to healthier and happier families. At the same time, our goal is to make space for innovation in family life more broadly and support a wide variety of different kinds of projects at the event. 
   
   Tickets are free; Starts Saturday, September 20, 10:00 a.m.; eventbrite.com ||||| Photo 
   
   I made my way upstairs, drawn by a strange sound emanating from our bedroom. It was rhythmic, like the sound of an old dot matrix printer. As I opened the door, I was confronted with the image of my wife holding two plastic funnels over her breasts with a big frown across her face. I immediately thought of Madonna’s cone-shaped bra from the 1980s and let out a gasp. 
   
   Courtney: John wasn’t laughing at me, he swore up and down. He was laughing at the ridiculousness of the contraption: a standard mechanical breast pump. New motherhood already felt like a battle to stay standing on ground in perpetual tectonic shifts. Now I realized that I was effectively dependent on a badly designed, embarrassingly loud device for any chance to leave the house. Let’s just say, I didn’t feel like Madonna. I felt like a cow at an industrial farm, awaiting a humanizing visit from Temple Grandin. It turns out, even Wikipedia describes the breast pump as “analogous to a milking machine used in commercial dairy production.” 
   
   Since our first encounters with the breast pump, we wondered how women had been duped into settling for such bad design. The pump is a symbol of the modern work-life conundrum. In theory, women have the freedom to honor the wisdom that “breast is best,” while still pursuing their own careers. And yet, to do so, they’re forced to attach themselves, multiple times a day, to a loud, sometimes painful machine that makes one feel anything but powerful. 
   
   No doubt inspired by the ubiquitous public service announcements about how healthy breastfeeding is for mother and baby, 77 percent of new mothers do it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2013 Breastfeeding Report Card. In fact, a crucial provision of the Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to cover lactation services, with the pump being the most obvious purchase. The average electric pump costs approximately $250. According to market research firm Global Industry Analysts, the breast pump market will reach 5.63 million units by 2015. 
   
   Photo 
   
   And yet, despite the lucrative market possibilities as well as the health benefits, the modern pump remains largely unchanged since it was first invented. Edward Lasker, an engineer, produced the first mechanical breast pump and secured the patent in the 1920s. In 1956, Einar Egnell created the Egnell SMB breast pump, a more efficient answer to Lasker’s original design. Nearly 60 years later, little has changed about the fundamental design of the mechanical pump. Suffice to say that neither man, despite building their legacies on lactation, had ever breastfed a baby. 
   
   Once we were confronted with the appallingly outdated design of the breast pump, we started asking other parent friends about their experiences. One friend, an executive in Washington, described pumping in an airport bathroom in San Juan, P.R., holding the plastic funnels to her breast as women touched up their makeup and gave her dirty looks. The only electrical outlet was next to the sinks. 
   
   Another friend needed to pump during a conference call; she crossed her fingers that the client on the other line wouldn’t ask about the incessant and curious sound in the background. The noise isn’t the suction, as one might expect, but the motor. Our half-ton hybrid car is quieter. 
   
   Another friend commented on the transparent plastic funnels: What product designer actually thought I would want to see my nipples getting sucked into small tubes over and over again? 
   
   We believe that all mothers deserve a better, more dignifying breast pump. It’s a critical, daily tool for the working mother and a no brainer investment for early childhood health (thus, the federal government subsidizing its use at such a significant level). 
   
   And beyond the health benefits of a better breast pump, there is a lot of money to be made by the company that attempts to really understand what would make the lives of working mothers easier and more pleasant. One pregnant friend put it in stark relief, “There were approximately one zillion different kinds of baby carriers to choose from when I was registering, but breast pumps? About three, and none of them looked significantly different from one another.” 
   
   We are reminded of Gloria Steinem’s “If Men Could Menstruate,” an article published in Ms. Magazine in 1978, in which she used satire to point out how different the world would be if gender roles were reversed: “Men would brag about how long and how much.” If men could breastfeed, surely the breast pump would be as elegant as an iPhone and quiet as a Prius by now. 
   
   It’s high time someone redesigned the breast pump. There’s dignity to be regained and a whole lot of money to be made. 
   
   Courtney Martin is the author of multiple books, including “Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists.” John Cary is the author of “The Power of Pro Bono.” They are partners in life and in work.
target: – It might not be the first thing that comes to mind after the word "hackathon," but organizers of an upcoming one at MIT say the world is long overdue for a better breast pump. Engineers, designers, moms, and health experts will gather later this month for reasons spelled out by organizers at their website: "The motor is loud. There are too many parts. They are hard to clean. You can’t lay down and pump. There is no good space to pump. It’s hard to keep track of what you pump. Your colleagues think pumping is weird. People are skeeved out by breastmilk. People are embarrassed by breasts." The Sept. 20-21 hackathon is an offshoot of a smaller brainstorming session in May that was in itself prompted by this article in the New York Times lamenting the baffling lack of progress on breast pumps. By and large, they remain complicated and sometimes painful. It's about time, writes Melissa Malamut at Boston Magazine. "Let’s not forget that you just pushed a baby out of your body. You’d think that would be the hardest part of being a new mom. But no, then you also have to deal with the annoyances of pumping." Business Insider calls it "one of the biggest issues for working mothers," and NBC News notes that half of all new mothers breastfeed for six months, meaning that most require pumps for at least parts of that stretch. The public health benefits of breastfeeding are "huge," say organizers, making the current pump designs all the more frustrating. Hackathon participants will split into teams and pitch prototypes at the end of the session. (A new issue: Moms who breastfeed while using medical marijuana.)