Students designed healthcare product during i-Day 2021 in Prague

I-Day is an event where university students meet entrepreneurs, healthcare specialists and coaches. During 1 day, we introduced them to real-life healthcare challenges and empowered them with skills to develop & present their business ideas for products that help people.

The whole event contained a total of 3 individual parts, which intertwined. During the 1st part, the participants learned how to design an idea full of potential. Pavel Bartoš, CEO of HappyEnd. agency introduced the design thinking process. Students in international teams faced 4 main challenges:

1. Design of a safe hospital room - today's rooms are using Emergency buttons or different types of alarms. Can it be improved? 
2. Remote monitoring - elderly people are often vulnerable. What to do to assure their safety? 
3. Pressure ulcers - primarily caused by prolonged pressure on the skin. How to prevent them in hospitals and elderly care houses? 
4. Health data collection in developing countries

Students were invited as individuals, but in most cases they came to the event in teams. After introducing them to the challenges, they created new teams according to the challenges they prefer. Thanks to this, very interesting international teams were formed, consisting of students from different years, but also fields, which greatly enriched their cooperation. Most of them chose the presented topic after the formation of new teams, but there were also cases where students combined several topics into one.

At the end of the day, we had to choose the best design idea. Lukáš Hrdlička, presentation specialist, international pitch trainer and TEDx speaker, provided very valuable tips on how to present the best pitch during the almost two-hour workshop and helped students work out the structure of their presentations. Student presentations followed, where we heard innovative ideas. The students used all the topics presented by our speakers, but the winning team was the one that combined 2 topics - remote care and monitoring & solutions to pressure ulcers. Congratulations to all participants and we believe that everyone enjoyed the show!