Wild Card teams to be chosen 16-20 April in Galway

Winners will receive extensive EIT Health support for developing transformative healthcare innovations

Thirty entrepreneurs will compete in the AT THE EDGE contest, on 16-20 April 2018 in Galway, Ireland, for the chance to join the two EIT Health Wild Card teams receiving support to develop transformative innovations in healthcare.

“AT THE EDGE is about pushing our shortlisted finalists to the limits of their abilities, to the edge of science, innovation and technology,” said EIT Health CEO Jan-Philipp Beck. “Wild Card is looking for the biggest and brightest minds to help solve some of Europe’s most pressing healthcare challenges. By the end of the week, we are confident that we’ll have found some game-changing ideas that will really transform the face of European health.”

The 30 entrepreneurs are shortlisted finalists for the EIT Health Wild Card initiative, which seeks transformative innovation to address two of Europe’s most pressing healthcare challenges:

• The SMART HEALTH challenge sets entrepreneurs the task of building solutions that utilise artificial intelligence to quickly interpret large unstructured data sets, allowing healthcare professionals across the EU to improve patient care and provide more personalised healthcare solutions.
• The FIGHT BACK challenge requires entrepreneurs to build innovative solutions that tackle the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, both in terms of raising awareness and enabling new processes and methodologies across EU healthcare.

The 30 competing entrepreneurs will be split into teams and set various tasks throughout the week. They will need to devise a concept for a game-changing product or solution, develop their idea and ultimately pitch their proposal to EIT Health’s jury. The teams chosen as the winners of the contest will each receive two years of support, including €2 million in funding, access to mentorship, business and research support and research facilities in a European business incubator.

Galway was chosen from among several European cities for the location of the AT THE EDGE contest because of its excellent reputation as a hub of medtech innovation. Two Galway-based medtech incubator/accelerator programmes, BioExcel and BioInnovate are involved in the programme, along with other incubators and acceletrators from around Europe, including Biocat, Medical Valley and RISE. Two of these organisations will be chosen to host the two winning Wild Card teams.