This time the judges didn’t just like them, they really, really liked them. EpiForAll took home the $15,000 Hollomon Family grand prize at the Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge hosted by the Foster School’s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship. The HIC at the University of Washington featured 20 student teams seeking to address problems in health, wellness, and healthcare through innovation.
This was EpiForAll’s second year of competing with their affordable emergency epinephrine auto injector that utilizes existing ampules. Last year, the team of mechanical engineering, business, and pharmacy students was awarded a Judges Also Really Liked (JARL) award and just missed out on the top three spots.
The $10,000 Herbert B. Jones Foundation second place prize went to BWB Anesthesia for their electricity-free portable anesthetic device that aims to improve access to inhaled anesthesia in low-resource settings. The team features students from bioengineering and the Foster School of Business.
The judges awarded PlayGait the $5,000 Fenwick & West third place prize. The team of mechanical engineering and business students developed an adjustable, affordable, non-electric exoskeleton to support in-home walking practice for kids with neuromuscular disorders.
Two $1,000 JARL awards were handed out to ACBI, who developed an automated continuous bladder irrigation process for urology patients post-surgery, and Quinton PHSH, who developed a belt that is able to provide stoma protection and abdominal wall support against herniation.
This was the second year of the Health Innovation Challenge and the first under the Hollomon name. Timmie Hollomon, her son Stephen, and their family generously contributed an 8-year, $1 million dollar gift in support of student creativity and innovation, focused on health and healthcare. “We’re very honored and blessed to be associated with something so special,” said Stephen. “It’s fun to see the collaboration between different colleges and schools and to witness the intellectual capital of these young adults.”
The Buerk Center would also like to thank our other HIC sponsors including the UW College of Engineering, the Foster School, WRF Capital, UW CoMotion, Carena, K&L Gates, Perkins Coie, Amazon Catalyst, UW Dept. of Bioengineering, UW Dept. of Biology, Physio Control and friends of the HIC: Devindra and Manisha Chainani, Annie Young-Scrivner, Kent and Lisa Sacia, and Emer Dooley and Rob Short.
The center will host two more innovation competitions in the coming weeks. The Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge is coming up Thursday, March 30. The UW Business Plan Competition holds its investment round on Wednesday, April 26, followed by the Sweet 16 and Final Round on Thursday, May 25. This year mark’s the 20th anniversary of the BPC and the 100th anniversary of the Foster School of Business.
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