12 • Profile
DIGITAL DEN
App developer and dentist Ben Underwood talks to SoundBite about his hi-tech approach to improving oral health
D
ENTIST Ben Underwood is at home looking after his newborn daughter who is just 10 weeks old. Although his first child, she is not his only ‘baby’ as Ben is the creator of award-winning dental app, Brush DJ. As baby Hannah sleeps in his arms, the new father explains how the idea came to him while watching an episode of the hit
BBC show The Apprentice. As Lord Alan Sugar challenged the candidates to develop an app, an idea was sparked in Ben’s mind. The premise was simple: create an app to encourage good oral health using music as the hook to motivate tooth brushing for an effective length of time: and so Brush DJ was born. Fast-forward six years and it has been downloaded over a quarter-of-a-million times in almost 200 countries.
Constant process Achieving this success was not easy. It took six months of hard work and considerable personal financial investment – including recruiting a local
app developer – to turn the idea into a reality. Ben says: “Think of it like building a house – but not quite as expensive.
There are a lot of things to consider and plan. Then once it’s built, it is a constant process of updating and improving based on user feedback. “It’s the positive feedback that keeps me working away on it, because I am definitely not doing it for the money!”
Seal of approval The NHS generally takes an average of 17 years to bring an innovation into widespread use, but Brush DJ has defied the odds to become the first (and currently only) dental app to be accepted into the new NHS Digital Apps Library. Ben also has the backing of the Chief Dental Officer for England Sara Hurley and the British Dental Association (BDA), as well as having attracted NHS funding to further develop his app. Proud of his achievement, Ben admits it has been harder work than he first thought: “Did I ever think about giving up on the app? Yes and no. All innovators go through what’s known as the ‘hype cycle’, where everything
THE
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