Project type: Bussines Innovation
Sector: Femtech
Year: 2026
Kalku
The challenge
The project was developed within the context of well-being and stemmed from the search for new innovation opportunities arising from changes in behaviors, needs, and technologies that are transforming this sector. The challenge consisted of rigorously investigating the environment, exploring emerging trends, business models, technologies, and unresolved problems to identify an opportunity that could be translated into a viable, desirable, and sustainable business proposal.
Within this exploration, we identified an opportunity surrounding the growing use of personal measurement technologies and their impact on women's well-being, especially during perimenopause and menopause. Although there are increasingly more tools capable of measuring health-related variables, the available information does not always translate into understanding or useful decisions for women going through this stage of life.
The process
The project began with in-depth research into the wellness sector, exploring trends, behaviors, and new technologies to identify emerging opportunities. Based on this analysis, we used prioritization matrices to organize the information and assess which trends showed the greatest potential for further investigation.
Rather than simply gathering information, the research process involved interpreting and connecting different findings. The data was combined with the team's perspective to question initial hypotheses, uncover new relationships, and decide where to go next. This convergence allowed us to identify the Quantified Self as the trend that would lay the groundwork for the project's later development.
The result
The research revealed an opportunity within a growing market: although the use of wellness-related wearables keeps increasing, abandonment rates are high and many of their features fall out of use over time. At the same time, women show a particularly active relationship with technologies and practices related to caring for their well-being.
The convergence of these findings led us to identify a gap in interpretation and support during the female hormonal transition, especially in peri/menopause. Kalku was born from this space: an app that connects to wearables through APIs to integrate biometric data with symptom tracking, helping users understand their hormonal changes and making daily monitoring and preparation for medical appointments easier.
The proposal was selected as a featured project of the Postgraduate Program.