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2022 People's Choice Awards

A Computer Vision-Based Platform for Non-Invasive Anemia Diagnosis

Global Alliance for Medical Innovation (GAMI); Harvard University; Duke University; University of California, Berkeley

Members: Dominic Garrity, Sophie Wu, Kartik Pejavara, Kunal Kapoor, Selena Halabi, Arushi Biswas, Helen Xu 

Anemia affects about 20% of the world’s population. However, current diagnostic technologies are expensive and invasive, leading to high mortality and morbidity. We aim to build a computer vision-based mobile application to accurately estimate blood hemoglobin levels, within +/- 0.5 g/dL, using nail bed images.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Adam Wax, Dr. Nirmish Shah

Baby Beatz

Georgia Institute of Technology

Members: Kadidia Haidara, Carina D'Angelo, Deborah Lobaccaro, Lydia El-Sayegh, Madeleine Tincher

Due to lack of effective fetal heart monitoring, stillbirths are highly concentrated in low and middle income countries, with over 2.5 million occurring each year. We aim to create a low cost, informative, and sustainable fetal heart monitor to improve birth outcomes in Ethiopia and worldwide.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. James Stubbs, Dr. Kelsey Kubelick

Baby ft. MACK

Stanford University

Members: Michelle Shen, Alex Bradfield, Chris Neimeth, Karsten Householder

Group B Streptococcus transmission is the leading cause of death for newborns 0-6 days old in developing nations. While universal maternal screening enables treatment that prevents transmission in the U.S., screening is inaccessible in regions with poor healthcare infrastructure, and vaccine efforts have not been successful.

Faculty Advisor: Prof. Jan Liphardt, Mr. Jerry Yan, Prof. Ziyaad Dangor, Prof. Gary Darmstadt

Chrysalis

University of Pennsylvania

Members: Carolyn Zhang, Julia Dunn, Rachel Gu, Julia Lasater

The incidence of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is on the rise, and the nursing shortage continues to stretch hospitals thin. There currently exists a gap in solutions capable of clinically alleviating NAS without pharmaceutical treatments that integrates smoothly into current care workflow.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Meaney, Dr. Michael Siedlik, Mr. Sevile Mannickarottu, Mrs. Molly May-Decock, NP

Clearvoyant

University of Florida

Members: Parker Kotlarz, Anthony Gruber, Peyton Warp, Nisha Kotta, Caleb Walton, Isabel Rivera, Angelica Almeida, Olga Chendighelean

Kidney stone prevalence is rising globally and disproportionately impacts low-income countries. Only 7% of low-income countries have community-level access to quantitative urinalysis testing that can help prevent stone recurrence. There is a need for an easy-to-use device that can provide quick, accurate urinalysis results.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Eric Fuller

EquinOx

Johns Hopkins University

Members: Jerry Zhang, Stanley Zhu, Janice Lin, Rahul Swaminathan, Yuqi Zhang, Vivek Chari, Valerie Wong, and Clara Cho

Pulse oximeters measure blood oxygen saturation level (SpO2), a critical indicator of a patient's respiratory health. However, recent studies have shown that SpO2 measurements are biased in dark skin tone patients. This bias can delay the diagnosis of hypoxemia and delivery of clinical interventions, especially in the Global South.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ashraf Fawzy, Dr. Jad Farha, Dr. Elizabeth Logsdon, Dema Shumeyko

HER: Hemorrhage Education Reimagined

Duke University

Members: Ashley Rosen, Morgan Bedingfield, Allison Goehringer, Jacklyn Herzberg,  Perisa Ashar

Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH), a condition characterized by continuous, heavy bleeding after birth, is the primary cause of maternal death. In low-income areas, PPH is at least 375% more likely to be fatal, resulting in a clear need for low-cost training models to aid in the diagnosis of PPH.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ann Saterbak

iMental Health 

Kampala International University, Western Campus 

Members: Kirumira Jonathan Isaac, Keynes Naleeba, Funda Micheal, Headson Shammah Rubagumya, Ekithom Thomas  

Access to mental health services especially in the sub Saharan Africa. Many of these people are experiencing mental-health struggles and are seeking help, but struggle to find the information they need to find the right mental health care provider. Others are mentally stronger and want to help out other people.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Elias Baguma 

Lifesiever

Rice University

Members: Laurel Chen, Neeve Chen, Abram Qiu, John Zhang

Oxygen therapy is a critical resource in low-resource settings (LRS), making oxygen concentrators vital. However, concentrators are vulnerable to electrical damage from brownouts/blackouts common in LRS. These interruptions to patients’ oxygen supply increase mortality rates and poorer health outcomes. Thus, concentrator protection is needed.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Sabia Abidi, Dr. Ashley Taylor, Dr. Rohith Malya

MedXpert

Addis Ababa Institute of Technology

Members: Naol Dame, Michael Belete, Liyu Mesfin, Betemariam Moges, Dawit Bezabih, Betselot Getnet

To reduce death and unexpected accident occur due to lack of fast emergency service and maintaining health condition of critical patient with reliable and chip products and calling for help during an accident using our product.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Sileshi Demesie

Modulo Prosthetics

University of Pennsylvania

Members: Alisha Agarwal, Michelle Kwon, Gary Lin, Ian Ong, Zachary Spalding

With 38 million amputees globally, many of whom live in countries that do not have access to quality healthcare or resources, the need for affordable prosthetics are increasingly prominent. Thumb amputations, in particular, account for 20% of all partial hand amputations and lead to a 40% loss in hand function.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Meaney, Dr. Michael Siedlik, Mr. Sevile Mannickarottu, Dr. Michael Hast, Dr. Prathusha Maduri

Muscle Wire Ankle Prosthetic

Clemson University

Members: Kaitlyn Cimney, Marion Godbold, Joshua Londhe, Isabelle Museck, Katherine Summers

Of the 40 million amputees in developing countries only 5 to15 percent are able to receive prosthetics. Our goal is to create an affordable ankle prosthetic that allows for dynamic motion of the ankle joint and is durable enough to withstand the environment of Indian farming communities.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Delphine Dean, Dr. John Desjardins

Neosave Humidifier

Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT)

Members: Benjamin Lembaro and Maximilian Mkenda

In Tanzanian hospitals, challenges associated with use of bubble CPAP include unavailability of oxygen humidifiers to moisturize air delivered to neonates. Dry air leads to dry out of useful fluids in the respiratory path and might even cause bleeding. An affordable humidifier is required along with the CPAP.

Faculty Advisor: Ms. Julia Jenjezwa, Dr. John Msumba

NEWBIES

Malawi University of Science and Technology 

Members: Janet Douglas, Francis Chimbalanga, Isaiah Wowa Manda

Blood transfusions due to surgery, injury, disease and bleeding disorders shall always be the topic of interest to improve lives. Transfusing cold blood may cause hypothermia and hemolysis.Blood warmer is a device that is used to warm blood before being administered into the patient’s body

Faculty Advisor: Mr. Richard Chilipa

POCAS:TB

Northwestern University

Members: Peter Kouassi, Shani Katz, Isaac Tenga

Automate the acid-fast staining procedure for smear microscopy to address the inefficiency of specimen prep and diagnosis of TB at the point of care.

Faculty Advisor: Matthew Glucksberg Ph.D. , Mr. Mark Fisher, David P O'Neill Ph.D

RBClear

Cornell University

Members: Brooke Cohen, Parker Dean, Ronya Strom

Malaria is a disease caused by a mosquito borne parasitic infection, which can cause severe anemia, acidosis, and hypoglycemia. In 2020, there were an estimated 241 million malaria cases worldwide, with over 550,000 deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. Blood donation rates are below 90% of what is demanded in the region.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. James Antaki

 Steridrum

Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies

Members: Abigail Dowse

In low-resource hospital settings, PPE shortages are a significant problem, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Ineffective disinfection methods can lead to masks being used an unsafe number of times, endangering patients and clinicians. Thus, there is a strong need for a device which can sterilize PPE efficiently and without degradation.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ashley Taylor, Mr. Grant Belton

Taste the Rainfall

Rice University

Members: Maya Levitan, Sherry Lin, Tasneem Mustafa, Bonnie Wang

While schools in Chiapas, Mexico have access to safe harvested rainwater, school members continue to drink water from unsafe wells due to preferred taste, attributed to its higher mineral content. Thus, there is an unmet need for low-cost rainwater mineralizers to encourage safe water consumption and prevent water-related diseases.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ashley Taylor, Dr. Sabia Abidi, Ms. Madeleine Tadros Weld, Dr. Jorge Loyo

Team IncuMovers

Georgia Institute of Technology 

Members: Kaebron Aschalew | Lama Bahanan | Annie Ballou | Tim Nguyen | Aparna Subramaniam 

Neonatal hypothermia is a major public health problem in low resource settings, especially prevalent during intrahospital transport. Thus, there is a need for an affordable and robust solution for maintaining optimal temperature of neonates during transport in order to reduce neonatal mortality.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Kelsey P. Kubelick

Team OX

University of Houston: Gerald D. Hines School of Architecture & Design

Members: Pedro Sandoval, Kadmiel Konan, Michael Palau

Over 148,000 children die of pneumonia related causes annually; an estimated 40% of those deaths are attributed to a lack of oxygen therapy. According to the NCBI, only 3.5% of existing oxygen concentrators meet health standards in sub-Saharan Africa. Our solution aims to improve upon this technology while meeting low-resource conditions.

Faculty Advisor: Professor Jeff Feng

Team Terrier

Boston University

Members: Cecile Meier-Scherling, Taylor Schissel

Native American communities experience disparities in healthcare access and outcomes, highlighted by higher mortality rates for chronic diseases and a healthcare system that is underfunded compared to other federal healthcare programs. There are currently no data-driven methods to evaluate interventions to perpetuate these disparities.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Muhammad Zaman

Team Ultimate 

University of Lagos 

Members: Emmanuel Arowesan | Chiamaka Okey-Chedi | Alex Eniola

According to the World Health Organization, six out of ten term babies and eight out of ten preterm babies are affected by neonatal jaundice, with the majority of these infants being from developing countries without access to proper phototherapy. Past solutions failed to recognize that phototherapy causes neonatal hyperthermia.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Olawale Ajibola

The Neonatal Asphyxia Project

University of Michigan

Members: Varun Kathawate, Audrey Wong, Miriam Stevens, Hani Nasr, Erin Parlow, Niyati Puranik, Mihika Rayan, Simran Bagri, Jill Vaishnav, Michael Magee, Sanjana Kumar, Candace Jung, Madeline Deming

Neonatal asphyxia is the leading contributor to newborn mortality in developing countries. Few infants survive, and those who do often experience a number of neurological deficits. Treatment is currently too expensive for underserved communities to utilize, accounting for over a million neonate deaths annually to this affliction.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Melissa Wrobel

The_Inventors

University of Lagos, Akoka 

Members: Otubure Victor, Uka Jonah, Ayobami Salim, Nwanne Nnamdi, Zainab Ashimiyu-Abdusallam 

In most African Countries, Medical care is difficult to get especially for patients who reside in remote areas. The manual method of patient record keeping contributes to this problem also. MyCliniQ Health App is a software that addresses these challenges, and helps to bridge the gap between patient and doctors while making the process much easier.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Segun Gbenle

The_Manufacturers

University of Lagos 

Members: Kwuelum Eniola, Adedeji Adetola, Nwajiaku Ifeanyi, Muftaudeen Rahamat, Onowenoni Moses

Various techniques, such as diet modification and physiotherapy, have been employed in the outpatient management of hypertension. However, none of these provide prompt intervention to arrest sudden, fatal spikes in blood pressure in the absence of access to appropriate treatment. Consequently, hypertension-related deaths remain a cause for concern.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Segun Gbenle

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