Global Health Innovation Grand Challenge Awards
The Summit featured the Global Health Innovation Grand Challenge Pitch competition to showcase groundbreaking solutions to real-world health problems. Teams of medical students and engineering students focused on innovations around four central themes: AI applications to improve outcomes in rural health or underserved areas globally; solutions that improve early disease detection of chronic conditions; slowing or reversing disease progression in aging populations; and low-cost diagnostics, devices, or therapeutic solutions that can have global scalability.
Menopatch | 1st Place - $75,000 award
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Menopatch is a special patch designed to treat menopause symptoms by delivering hormone treatments through the skin. The patch is designed to deliver personalized doses of hormone replacement therapy for up to 30 days.
Team members: Ameek Bindra, Hamna Khalid, Jennifer Cochand, Hyukin Moon, Adam Szemerata; Kamryn Abraskin; Megha Guggari; Kush Sarin.
Atlas | 2nd Place - $60,000 award
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Atlas is a neurosurgical navigation device for use in rural and underserved settings to treat traumatic brain injury. Atlas’ guidance system enables non-specialist medical personnel to stabilize critically ill patients with fluid build-up on the brain until they can be transported to advanced care centers. The system can use either CT scans or MRI images coupled with the team’s specially designed software for mapping the best trajectory and the device’s robotic arm to ensure safe, effective external ventricular drain placement.
Team members: Alexander Smith; Samarth Gupta; Prateek Dullur
Cervicare | 3rd Place - $50,000 award
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Cervicare is aimed at improving the diagnosis of cervical cancer by offering reliable screening at home. The team’s tampon-like self-collection kit improves on the traditional pap smear by allowing patients to more comfortably collect the necessary samples at home or in the doctor’s office. Samples would be sent to a lab for analysis, but the team’s plans include the development of a lateral flow assay test that could more quickly detect biomarkers for cervical cancer.
Team members: Nellie Haug; Nama Naseem; Grace Brolly; Bhargavee Gnana; Modan Goldman; Abby Kostolansky; Matt Raab; Linh Pham
Ferritiva | 4th Place - $40,000 award
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Ferritiva is an at-home screening and monitoring test for iron deficiency as a convenient alternative to blood testing. The team’s solution would analyze a small sample of the patient’s urine to detect biomarkers for iron deficiency. Results would be available within 15 minutes, allowing at-home screening and monitoring for patients who are at risk for this common form of anemia.
Team members: Jeffrey Lu; Eben Lee; Rachael Wong; Matt Dusza; George Polovin; Vishnu Shastry; Siddarth Nataranajan
EIS-AI | 5th Place - $25,000 award
National Yang-Ming Chiao-Tung University (NYCU), Taiwan
EIS-AI is designed to enhance ureter protection during robotic surgery in the pelvis. Ureter injury is a common surgical error. The team’s system incorporates a special sensor that detects when the ureters are contacted during surgery and alerts the surgical team, preventing injury. The team’s AI-based solution also has application to other high-risk or error-prone surgeries and for surgical training.
Team members: Yu-Ching Chen; Min-Hong Lu; Li-Wei Chen; Jun-Yu Lin
Finalist Teams
- Fund-a-scope - An ultra-low-cost fungus camera for rural eye care
Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine - NTU, Singapore
Team members: Pang Rei Ern Jaime; Matthew Tham Yong’an; Shua Yu Le Irving - NeuroGuard - A nerve-detecting surgical device for safer procedures
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Team members: Nikita Chigullapally; Meenakshi Singhal; Prateek Dullur; Nicolas Kelhofer; Kyung Seol; Tamanna Dhore - Pelivitech3 - Increasing accessibility and changing the stigma around Kegel exercises for the prevention of urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction
University of Louisville School of Medicine
Team members: Emily Haleman, Iona Palmer, Nia Bard; Theresa Weis - Unicorn - Ultra-sensitive novel intelligent cardiovascular observation for real-time diagnostic
Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine - NTU, Singapore
Team members: Zhuang Lingyi; Chloe Alexandria Lim Shi Ann; Joshua Jebaraj Raymond; Low Rae-Yin Clarice; Voo Jia Yi - Integrating ICG Fluorescence and AI - A real-time guidance system for safer laparoscopic cholecystectomy
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Team members: Fumihiro Kawano; Kathryn Tsai; Daniel Cheah; Helen Kemprecos; Megan Lim; Claudius Conrad
“Through partnerships and collaborations in the global consortium, we are advancing the future of medical education, connecting people and data from around the world to advance medical research, and breaking down barriers to advancing and scaling medical innovations for the benefit of society.”
Mark Cohen
CI MED Dean and Global Consortium Executive Council President
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