During the past school year, multidisciplinary teams of University of Hawaii students have been challenged to identify unmet medical needs and develop creative solutions to real-world problems. The students showcased their prototypes for devices that could one day be used in the medical industry at the 2nd annual MIND (Medical Innovation and Design) Hawaii Design Competition hosted at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children.
Students were competing for design awards and additional funding to further support their innovations. A total of $10,000 in seed funding was awarded to five teams whose designs were recognized in the categories of best innovation, ready for market, most practical, medical needs and the grand prize for demonstrating exceptional engineering and medical impact.
The students have been mentored during this process by various community physicians, including physicians at Kapiolani.
“Many of the problems that these students worked on came from clinicians here who have faced some kind of challenge in the day-to-day care they provide,” said Dr. Russell Woo, pediatric surgeon at Kapiolani and MIND Hawaii physician advisor. “We’ve matched up these student teams with our physicians and they work together to try to solve those problems. Even if one of the teams can get a product out to market and into a healthcare setting, we’re talking about affecting thousands of patients in a positive way.”
The winning projects were:
GRAND PRIZE
Shark CPR: Educational CPR Manikin for Children and Adolescents (pictured in photo above)
Awarded to the group that presents the most impressive project that demonstrates exceptional engineering and medical impact.
($2,000 seed funding + 2 unlimited 1-year memberships to Impact Hub Honolulu)
READY FOR MARKET
Maluhia Surf Helmets
Goes to the group that presents the most impressive project that is ready to be developed. ($2,000 seed funding)
BEST INNOVATION
CPCS, LLC: Contactless Physiological Communication System
Goes to the group that presents the most impressive project that focuses on a creative solution to a medical device need. ($2,000 seed funding)
MOST PRACTICAL
Makani: Non-Occluding Surgical Suction
Goes to the group that presents the most impressive project that addresses the most practical solution to the medical problem. ($2,000 seed funding)
MEDICAL NEEDS
Myolect: Myoelectric Interface “Prosthosis”
Goes to the group that presents the most impressive project that focuses on Hawaii's community health needs. ($2,000 seed funding)
“We are very excited to be involved in this project,” said Kapiolani CEO Martha Smith. “We think it starts with great minds, and the students and physicians together have come up with some great ideas that one day we might see being used right here in the treatment and care of patients.”
Previous MIND projects have gone on to create medical device prototypes currently being utilized in Institutional Review Board (IRB) clinical trials, are patent pending, and have been presented at national conferences.
MIND Hawaii is a student-run program associated with the University of Hawaii at Manoa whose mission is to bring together students and faculty from various fields, such as medicine, engineering, business, law and marketing to develop solutions to challenging medical problems. The program culminates in this year-end competition for additional funding to support the next step in the innovation lifecycle. For more information, visit MINDHawaii.com.