AI and Digital healthcare solutions sweep awards at Medical Grand Challenge 2024

Published: 17 Aug 2024

All the winning teams from Medical Grand Challenge 2024.

A machine learning software that allows nurses to efficiently and remotely monitor outpatient stoma cases while providing personalised care advice, and a digital intervention where women can find personalised, comprehensive and accessible mental health care won first place in the Nascent and Open categories respectively at the Medical Grand Challenge Finale 2024, held earlier today.

Team CERVIVAI was awarded the Social Responsibility Award for their project that integrates Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid (VIA) testing and Artificial Intelligence into one system, to enhance cervical cancer screening accuracy and accessibility for women living in low-resource areas.

The WiZards presenting their innovation at the poster exhibition before the start of MGC Finale 2024.

For their patented technology that prevents bacterial buildup in hospital sink traps, Team Bioshield bagged the Long-Term Sustainability Award. Garnering the highest number of votes in the voting portal during the Finale, the WiZards received the People’s Choice Award for their one-stop software solution that streamlines occupational health hazard management by focusing on three components: hazard detection, hazard reporting and human resources management. These three teams walked away with $4,000 each for their efforts.

The Medical Grand Challenge (MGC) 2024 received a bumper crop of submissions this year, as it played host to 40 teams from around the world. MGC 2024 welcomed nine teams from China, and four teams from Thailand. The competition was also keener, with teams upping the ante from projects devising extremely advanced prototypes from scratch, such as an imaging tool that gives accurate assessments of corneal and limbal blood vessels, a 3-in-2 device strategy to measure intracranial pressure, a microneedle blood tester to identify sexually-transmitted diseases in the blood, to an injectable thermosensitive fibroin microspheres hydrogel to treat osteoporosis.

All participating teams presented their novel innovations at a one-and-a-half-hour closed-door judging session in the morning. Eventually, 16 teams were shortlisted from each of the Nascent and Open category and invited to do a stage pitching before the other competitors and a panel of 17 judges, all highly-experienced commercial leaders from various sectors such as business, healthcare, engineering and research.

Team C-Blu from University of Utah, USA, giving a presentation on their innovation that won the grand prize at the Bench to Bedside competition organised by University of Utah Health.

This year’s MGC Finale saw 14 local teams, nine from China, six from Indonesia and four from Thailand competing in the Nascent Category. Seven other teams, including one from Malaysia vied for top place in the Open Category. An event highlight was a Bench-to-Bedside project demonstration by Team C-Blu from the University of Utah, USA, which demonstrated how their innovation won the grand prize at the Bench to Bedside (B2B) competition, a premier healthcare innovation competition organised by University of Utah Health.

For more details, click here for the media release.