Finalists Announcement: BBFH Challenge 2024

The IDE Group is proud to announce the four finalists for the prestigious Building Better Futures for Health (BBFH) Challenge 2024. This year’s competition showcases remarkable medical innovations from across Australia, the Netherlands, and Colombia, addressing pressing healthcare challenges in rapid testing, nerve stimulation therapy, laser imaging and vision testing.

The BBFH Challenge offers an unparalleled opportunity to showcase ground-breaking ideas in healthcare and compete for a prize package valued at up to $40,000 in design, development, and commercialisation services from IDE Group. This year’s winners will benefit from an exclusive IDE Building Blocks Workshop, where a tailored commercial strategy will be crafted to propel their ventures forward.

OOXii has developed a vision kit that enables basic health workers to test vision and dispense customised, affordable glasses on the spot, thus making glasses accessible to all. The Vision Kit contains a patented Vision Testing Wheel, vision charts, customisable frames and pre-cut optical lenses, as well as a mobile application which provides training and instruction, dispensing information, audit and inventory control. Digital payment and eye health screening tools can be added in future. The whole kit is durable, portable and affordable. Pilot projects in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have successfully proven that the OOXii Vision Kit changes lives, allowing people to study, work and care for others where they had been unable to before getting glasses.

Twente Medical Optics (TMO) is rooted in blood perfusion measurement. Validating blood perfusion has significant meaning for diagnosing tissue survivability and, therefore, can be used for wound-healing potential and microsurgery outcome validation. HAPI was developed to address this core user need of great accuracy without significant workflow disruption. Years of research have led to patented technology which allows LSCI to be used in a quick, mobile, and handheld way, empowering the physicians instead of burdening them. No longer will there be a barrier to shorter hospital stays and better outcomes afforded by the accurate LSCI technology, freeing the road for wide user adoption.

Syncricity is revolutionising the management of spasticity, a condition characterised by excessive muscle rigidity, which affects individuals with conditions such as cerebral palsy or those recovering from severe central nervous system injuries. Their innovative approach involves a novel nerve stimulation therapy designed to empower patients and alleviate pain and discomfort associated with spasticity. Their product can be broken down into implanted and external components. The implanted component involves distributed micro-implants for neuromodulation of peripheral nerves each with a wireless power receiver. The micro-implants, which can be implanted non-surgically by a clinician, target specific muscle groups and do not require any internal batteries and could potentially be left in place indefinitely. Instead, they receive power and control wirelessly from the external component – a battery-operated smart textile sleeve and controller.