Starting on May 30th the heart failure-focused hackathon by Salento Biomedical District, a virtual and physical space in Cavallino (Lecce), created with the goal of facilitating the interaction between startups, large companies, investors and research institutes to empower education, research and technological innovation towards human well-being and the growth of our society.
The initiative is organized by Medtronic, leader in the Healthcare Technology industry, and Università del Salento in collaboration with BIP Consulting, international consulting firm, and Italian Angels for Growth (IAG), leader in the Italian seed venture capital space. The program is aimed at startups and SMEs with experience in the CardioTech and Digital Health fields, that have developed innovative technologies for diagnostics, patient monitoring, doctor-patient communication or patient journey optimization that could solve cardiac failures related problems.
Applications through this link are open until May 24th. The jury will select within the applicants the most promising startups, that will participate in an on-line event on May 30th, in which they will discuss with industry experts and deep dive the challenges of this condition, on which they will have to work.
Participants will have 4 weeks to realize the project and present it on June 28th and 29th in Cavallino (Lecce), at the Salento Biomedical District facility. The best project will receive 5.000 euros as an acknowledgement of their merit by the jury of the hackathon and will have the chance to work with Medtronic and the partners of Salento Biomedical District in further developing the idea within the dedicated spaces in Cavallino (Lecce).
“The goals of the initiative – says Armida Gigante, Sustainability, Open Innovation and Stakeholder Experience Lead at Medtronic Italia – are those of enhancing talents and fueling a dynamic startup ecosystem to answer in a tangible and innovative way the challenges of the HealthTech sector to meet the patients’ needs, consistently with our Mission, always inspiring our innovation efforts: alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. We decided to host the event at Salento Biomedical District because it has been created with the purpose of stimulating creativity, facilitate the exchange of ideas and it fits well into our Open Innovation program, involving Universities and Institutions in Milan, Mirandola, Rome, Naples, and Lecce.”
“What was an innovative model of innovation management today has become a corporate strategy awareness. Open innovation, meant as the use of tools and activities that reward collective intelligence and participatory innovation models, distinguishes the ability of companies to engage the industry ecosystem with great attention to the interests and role of multiple stakeholders. BIP makes its expertise and experience in this matter available to the ecosystem of the Salento Biomedical District and Medtronic to generate and develop together valuable solutions for each actor involved" declares Ivan Ortenzi, Chief Innovation Evangelist BIP.
“In its 15 years of activity as leader of the Italian seed venture capital sector, IAG has always supported entrepreneurship in the HealthTech area, investing capital and competencies to sustain the most innovative companies in the sector. We are glad to give our contribution in this initiative that embraces one of our main goals: fostering collaboration between different stakeholders in the innovative ecosystem such as the Academia, established firms and startups. We believe that a stronger integration and cooperation among these stakeholders can have a strong positive impact on the sector’s development”, says Carlo Tassi, Chairman at Italian Angels for Growth.