Biocat to help select candidates for EIT Health Wild Card program
<p>The finalists will face off from April 16 to 20 in Galway in a tournament to choose the members of two teams that will receive €2 million each</p>
March 9 was the deadline for applications to participate in Wild Card, a groundbreaking initiative of the EIT Health consortium to identify and support innovative and high-risk ideas with the potential to transform the European healthcare sector. The program has earmarked €4 million for innovative projects in artificial intelligence, big data and antibiotics resistance.
Candidates, individually or in groups, had to submit an innovative idea for tackling the two challenges chosen this year: Smarth Health, using artificial intelligence to interpret big data to improve healthcare for European patients; and Fight Back, to come up with solutions to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.
Now, the candidates selected will compete in the Wild Card Tournament, from April 16 to 20 in Galway (Ireland). Biocat is one of the EIT Health partners chosen to organize the Wild Card Tournament, along with BioInnovate, BioExel, Medical Valley and RISE. During the tournament, the finalists will participate in individual and team activities to choose the members of the two teams that will end up participating in the program.
The tournament will also include activities to show the finalists all the different phases their innovation projects will go through, from need identification to development, prototyping and pitching. Plus, the event will also include activities to see how the participants interact and how they fit together as a group. “Biocat has helped design the Wild Card Tournament contributing the expertise and experience we’ve gained over five years of the d·HEALTH Barcelona program, in which fellows experience a full innovation cycle,” highlights Raquel Riera, director of Moebio, the Biocat initiative to accelerate and innovate in medical technology and digital health.
The two projects selected at the Wild Card Tournament will receive up to €2 million for each project over two years, starting this October (€1 million per year), as well as access to facilities and advice from the EIT Health partners and a dozen associated business organizations and incubators.