To address the ever-changing challenges encountered by the health industry, Health Future Challenge – a first-of-its-kind ideation competition was organised last month with close collaboration among the Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office (KTEO), the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (FHSS) and the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology (ABCT) of Faculty of Science.

The Challenge attracted over 200 registrations and about 40 project teams comprising students, researchers, alumni and industrialists formed to develop innovative health-tech ideas in the form of medical devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures and systems. After attending a series of workshops and mentoring session in the Ideation Gala, 22 project teams were shortlisted to pitch to an audience of experienced judges.

Eventually, six teams were recognised as Champion, 1st Runner-ups and 2nd Runner-ups with cash prizes and direct admission to PolyU Student Entrepreneurial Proof-of-Concept Funding Scheme. Three of the winning projects are PolyU research projects and they received an additional HK$500,000 or HK$200,000 Translational Research Grant offered by FHSS and ABCT respectively to kick-start their commercialisation journey. In recognition of their forming inter-disciplinary teams, some projects were awarded the Co-innovation Award.

The competition helped catalyse inter-disciplinary team formation and business and technology integration, as well as advancing PolyU domain expertise through translational research and start-ups.