EIT ICT Labs organised in the months July-August 8 Summer Schools driven by the Action Lines. The Action Line Health and Wellbeing organised a 2-week Summer School from 4 August till 15 August on the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven.
On 27 August, an inquiry closed under the 47 participants. The general conclusion of this evaluation showed that this Summer School programme may be proud of a ‘good to very good’ validation.
The theme of ‘Health and Wellbeing’,was introduced through lectures and workshops on life style trends, and on ways to assess, measure and promote fitness and mental wellbeing. In addition, entrepreneurial capabilities had been enhanced and trained through master classes on specific business aspects as market research, finance and venturing.
The students were challenged to bring up innovative ICT solutions for 7 real life business cases as delivered by the startups Enwake, Health-i, Evalan and the partners Philips and Holst Centre. Each case was introduced by a case owner. The cases covered topics in health care, consumer lifestyle and wellness. Around each case a project was formed. Throughout the project work the project teams could tune their findings and strategy with the business case owners.
Pitching the solutions
At the end of the second week, the students had to present their final solution through a pitch of 5 minutes sharp. The pitches took place for the business case owners and a jury existing of Patrick Strating, the Node Director of EIT ICT Labs Eindhoven, Bert Gyselinckx, Managing Director of Holst Centre-IMEC NL, Jean Gelissen, EIT ICT Labs Action Line Leader of Health and Wellbeing and Frank Kistemaker, CEO of IQare.
The Jury was very pleased with the solutions that the students had been working on for 2 weeks. At the same time their opinion was clear and sharp that in general terms the results were innovative but that it could have been more creative. Hence, there were significant top solutions presented and the solution that was awarded as most ‘entrepreneurial, creative and innovative’ was the project called: Gulp Band.
Best Business Solution: Gulp Band!
The Gulp Band students worked on a business case for Holst Centre to bring an ion sensor for fluid monitoring to market. The students brought up the idea to test the smart band at a big music- and/or dance festival. You reach in one pilot thousands of people. And at festivals it is becoming more and more common (and hip) to work with smart wrist bands and adding the ion sensor would be a feasible add-on.
The business case owner of Holst Centre, Rob van Schaijk, was very happy with the top solution of Gulp Band. Initially he thought to test a demonstrator of the ion-sensor amongst sports people or elderly people. Rob said on the idea to test the ion sensor on festivals: “It is a marvelous idea that the students brought up: original, effective and operative”.
What do partipants say?
Jelena Pantovic, EIT ICT Labs Master School motivated her choice for the Summer School on Health and Wellbeing as follows: “I like research that is related to medical”. She also explained in a nutshell what valuable learnings she gained: “I have learned not only specifically on medical issues but also learned on how startups work, the way they have to go through like such things as funding and the like. Especially, since I plan to have my own startup after the Master programme this summer school was extremely useful”.
Marielle Meuffels, was the business case owner for the startup Health-i. Their proposition was that their current business plan focuses on a low volume, high value B2B solution. They presented a business case for a high volume, low cost B2C offering. She expected the students to come up with: "creativity, open mindedness and a solution from out a different cultural angle".
Gerd Spekowius, was one of the business case owners for Philips. He mentioned that the business cases were coming from their daily strategic business development discussions. He said on the outcome of the students : “I have respect for their fantastic, fresh ideas and I hope that the students enjoyed it as much as we do”’. Next to: “we definitely will follow up on the proposed solutions”.
Watch the video!
Contact: Jean Gelissen
