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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1468031
MAY/JUNE 2022 BCBUSINESS 19 TOP: ADAM BLASBERG W I N N E R DOLMA TSUNDU F O U N D E R A N D C E O , F L U T T E R C A R E E very two minutes some- where in the world, a woman dies of pregnancy- related causes. That sad statis- tic holds personal meaning for Dolma Tsundu, whose mother experienced two complicated pregnancies. "With me, she had a very traumatic birth," says the founder and CEO of Flutter Care. Burnaby-raised Tsundu, whose parents are Tibetan immigrants from India, has always enjoyed creating things. Wanting to apply those talents practically, she did a degree in integrated engineering at UBC, where she found herself admit- ted to entrepreneurship@UBC's Lean LaunchPad program in 2017 after winning an award. That introduction to business encouraged Tsundu to com- bine her varied interests in a way that felt true to herself, by launching a company whose in- novative technology safeguards maternal and fetal health. Flutter Care—its name refers to the first movements in the womb—is a mobile app that aims to predict and prevent pregnancy complications. "What we're trying to do is to help inform and educate fami- lies on how they can protect themselves, while also giving them tools to be able to access education and track their data," says Tsundu, who led a team of eight as of April. The first complication that Flutter Care decided to focus on is stillbirth, which a preg- nant person can help prevent by recognizing their unique fetal movement pattern, she explains. A changing pattern INNOVATOR R U N N E R - U P VANESSA LEBOURDAIS E X E C U T I V E D I R E C T O R A N D C R E A T I V E L E A D , D R E A M R I D E R P R O D U C T I O N S S O C I E T Y LIVING IN TOFINO back in 1990, Vanessa LeBourdais rented a house with a rainforest in the backyard. Without warning, her landlady clear-cut it. "She literally turned it into a parking lot," LeBourdais remembers. "I realized that was happening all over the world, and that sparked my environmental consciousness." The Toronto native, whose ambitions lay in musical theatre, became a lead organizer of the seminal movement to protect Clayoquot Sound, getting arrested and writing protest songs. She later met Ian Gschwind, who founded DreamRider Productions Society with her when the City of Vancouver asked them to write a play for children about water conservation. "That also gave us our weird business model of selling theatre to cities," LeBourdais says of the 1998 production and other long-running enviro-educational shows, which went on to reach 50,000 elementary school students a year throughout the Lower Mainland. Vancouver-based DreamRider has also scaled its offerings, which use comedy and catchy songs to help kids learn, by going digital. Planet Protector Academy, launched in 2013, gamifies environmental conservation by casting children as apprentice superheroes who collaborate on missions. So far, the 10-member DreamRider team has delivered its programs to more than a million kids in some 350 Canadian cities, and to audiences in 11 other countries. The message sticks: 90 percent of children taking part in the shows influence their families to be more environmentally responsible. Half of participating families change their driving hab- its, 70 percent curb energy use, and 60 percent reduce waste. "We use digital media to create a transformational space in which kids feel pos- sibility and hope," LeBourdais says. –N.R. they can identify if there is that change and if they should go see their doctor." Since Flutter Care launched last fall, families in 45 coun- tries have used the app. Data platform FemTech Analyt- ics named Tsundu one of its global Femtech Personalities for 2021, in the pregnancy and nursing category. Flutter Care, which has received funding from the National Research Council and several other institutions, is raising a capital round. With advocacy groups Baby's Breath Canada and BébéBouge.ca, the startup also recently launched the Canadian Collaborative for Stillbirth Prevention. Besides raising awareness of fetal movement tracking, the three partners are lobbying the federal government to act on prevention, Tsundu says. "Our goal is to reduce stillbirths within Canada by 30 percent by 2030." –N.R. could mean that the baby is in distress. "Everyone's normal is different," says Tsundu, who is a certified doula. "Our technology is helping them to identify what their normal is so