Health Innovation Challenge

Over 20 engineering students took part in a week-long innovation challenge, from the 6th - 10th of November, to develop new healthcare innovations and viable business propositions, supported by the Engineers In Business Fellowship. Students from a range of year groups from foundation year to PhDs and studying a variety of disciplines within the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences took part. 

The programme, which was co-created by the Aston Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Team and academics from the College, involved an ideation workshop, group forming session, business model and pitching workshops. The teams had a dedicated basecamp to work in and develop their business ideas and pitches with the support of the delivery team. The seven teams delivered a 5-minute pitch to three expert judges, Lyndon Buck, Senior Teaching Fellow in Design, Heather Rose, Research Associate in Medical Imaging and AI and Omran Al Habbal, CEO and Founder of Leading Lines. All three commented on the quality of both the business ideas and the pitches they had to evaluate.

The winning team’s concept was an Advanced First Aid (AFA) which includes an EpiPen, pulse oximeter and a newly designed vitals machine, measuring blood pressure, a GPS to locate the emergency and a CPR voice over. Similar to the way defibrillators are available today, AFA will be readily available so that when an emergency occurs it can be used while the caller is on the phone with 999 operators. Ultimately it can save the ambulance service money by fewer ambulance callouts. Team AFA comprised Emiliana Demo - Logistics with supply chain, Sadia Miah Begum -Biomedical engineering, Manahil Irshad -Mechanical engineering and Lucy Smith – Product design & technology. AFA were awarded £1,250 from EIBF as seed funding for their idea.

The second team consisting of Tiffany Yu – Biomedical engineering, Ekgari Kasawala – Biomedical engineering and Shifa Ali Nazim Raza Sayyed – Computer science, developed PillSmart a revolutionary AI and IoT enabled medicine dispensing device. It features no-contact heart rate sensing through remote Photoplethysmography (rPPG) using a high-resolution camera that also allows real time stream to carers. This allows remote monitoring of elderly patients by family members and healthcare professionals. The team were awarded £750 funding.

Two runners-up prizes of £500 each were also awarded to Dominic Pollard-Odle – Electrical & electronic engineering and Vivek Kaushal – Product design, who together created Bio Mon a watch and app that would have AI integration to help people specifically with heart disease to reduce the amount of heart attacks and negative impacts from this disease. Team Rhythm, Hamid Mustapha – Cybersecurity, Ighomena Odebala – Computer science, Sia Abu – Mathematics and Shini Adebay – Computer science developed an app to educate women on hormonal changes and give advice on what lifestyle choices (food, exercise, mindfulness) should be taken to fuel their body.

Tim Whitehead Associate Dean for Impact and Design Lecturer, commented: “It was a great week, and we were all so impressed with the quality of ideas and student pitches.”

Carolyn Keenan Head of Aston Enterprise and Entrepreneurship said “It has been an inspiring week working with such talented engineers who really embraced the challenge and developed several viable business ideas, which we will continue to support.”