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Breast Health App Sends 快活app Seniors to Paris

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Lorne Fultonberg

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Lorne Fultonberg
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Lorne.Fultonberg@du.edu

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Amelia Coomber, left, and Julia Farrell, right, work with their team at a startup competition in February. The team won the competition and advanced to the international finals in Paris.
Amelia Coomber, left, and Julia Farrell, right, work with their team at a startup competition in February. The team won the comp

At first, there was some confusion as Amelia Coomber unwrapped her Christmas gift.

A homemade salve? For her breasts?

鈥淒ude, I've never once put anything on my boobs,鈥 she remembers saying. 鈥淸But] this is amazing. It smells like a bakery on your chest.鈥

Pretty soon Coomber, a senior in the听听was cooking up something more potent. She went home, bought a web domain and set up a rough website.

Amelia Coomber, founder of Boobi Butter, pitches her newly-developed Norma app at a startup competition in February.
Amelia Coomber, founder of Boobi Butter, pitches her newly-developed Norma app at a startup competition in February.

Boobi Butter was born. And soon, a related mobile app was developed and introduced, leading to an invitation to Paris, where she鈥檒l join co-founder Julia Farrell in representing Colorado in an听

鈥淧eople don鈥檛 talk about their boobs,鈥 Coomber says. 鈥淲e really have the opportunity to get somebody to feel their boobs and detect cancer early.鈥

The premise behind Boobi Butter is prevention. Though one in eight women will contract breast cancer in their lifetimes, most cases occur after age 40.

To Coomber and Farrell, a senior majoring in computer science and mathematics, that means women their age are often overlooked. Just 4 percent of breast cancer cases occur in women under age 40. However, those cases tend to be more aggressive and diagnosed later, according to the Young Survival Coalition.

鈥淭ranslating awareness into action, that鈥檚 what we do,鈥 says Farrell, whose own mother was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. 鈥淓veryone knows breast cancer exists, but how do I protect myself personally? We鈥檙e trying to bridge that gap.鈥

Julia Farrell, a founder of Boobi Butter, holds a wood-engraved educational guide that teaches women how to perform monthly self-breast exams.
Julia Farrell, a founder of Boobi Butter, holds a wood-engraved educational guide that teaches women how to perform monthly self

Boobi Butter products attempt to do just that. The organic ingredients are intended to keep breast tissue healthy by decreasing inflammation and increasing circulation, but the real purpose is to familiarize women with their bodies while making monthly breast exams a more comfortable experience. 鈥淚t doesn't have to be this scary thing,鈥 Coomber says.

Accomplish that, Coomber and Farrell reason, and women will be more likely to know when something isn鈥檛 right. Other products for sale on the Boobi Butter website, including stickers and mirrors, should serve as reminders to conduct a monthly self-exam.

The duo advanced their concept at听听in February. Over the course of 54 hours, Coomber and Farrell developed an app to complement their product.

Norma,听as the free app is known, reminds women to make regular exams a priority. It also provides a platform for tracking and recording results. Like many popular exercise apps, Norma is designed to create a community. Users can initiate 鈥淏oobie Bumps鈥 to remind their friends to stay on top of their health.

Both Farrell and Coomber 鈥 who call themselves the 鈥淏oobi听Babes鈥 鈥 are so passionate about the products, they plan to continue working on the business full time after they graduate.

But first, there鈥檚 the trip to Paris for the international finals of the startup competition.

鈥淭here is not a more fulfilling thing in our lives right now,鈥 Coomber says. 鈥淚n Paris, we鈥檒l have another audience to just push this movement out to. It is our passion. And this is so neat that we鈥檝e been able to work on it.鈥

Update:听The Boobi Butter/Norma team placed third in the Global Startup Weekend Women Big Final in Paris. Twenty-two teams from 15 countries competed.