‘Preserve those special small moments’: Movember men’s health awareness month organiser on his app to capture family memories – and key health information

Nicholas Worley, a resident of Hong Kong, has been abstaining from shaving for a while now. He's preparing his moustache for Movember, an annual event that brings attention to men's health issues such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health, and suicide prevention. Growing a moustache is a symbolic gesture to support Movember, a global movement that is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The movement began in 2003 in a pub in Melbourne, Australia, and has since grown significantly. It has funded more than 1,300 men's health projects worldwide and initiated the world's largest prostate cancer registry network, which now includes over 200,000 men from 23 countries.

Movember has also been instrumental in directing almost US$350 million into more than 600 biomedical research projects for prostate and testicular cancer. Since incorporating mental health issues such as suicide in 2006, the movement has brought together experts, funded innovative approaches, and embraced new perspectives, all with the aim of 'getting men talking'. Men, referred to as 'Mo bros', and their sisters, are encouraged to take action and initiate conversations about men's health. This is crucial as testicular cancer is the most common cancer among men aged 15 to 39, and more than 1. 4 million men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2020, a number expected to rise to 2. 3 million globally by 2040. In Hong Kong, more than 30 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every month, making it the third-most common cancer in men.

Worley has been an active supporter of the Movember movement since 2010, even organising some of the first gala parties in Hong Kong. The cause is deeply personal to him. His grandfather, Cecil Norman Worley, died of prostate cancer at the age of 89 when Nicholas was just 16. This personal loss was one of the motivations for Worley to launch Inalife, a platform that connects families and preserves their digital memories, especially sentimental items like anecdotes, family photos, and videos. The platform is user-friendly, allowing users to create a profile with personal information and add library albums with photos, videos, audio files, and documents. It also has a feature that allows users to send time-delayed messages to loved ones, and it stores details about family members that one might have wanted to ask but never got around to, such as their favourite holiday, greatest moment of hardship, or even their biggest regret.