IIIT-HYDERABAD HELPS HOST FIRST STARTUPWEEKEND MED-TECH HACKATHON

Hyderabad, June 12, 2017: IIIT-Hyderabad helped StartupWeekend to host a 3-day immersive medtech hackathon over the weekend.

Startup Weekend is a Techstars Program, an international format organised by volunteers in each city tohelp accelerate the pace of innovation and grow the worldwide entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Participants with medtech/healthcare ideasto potentially diagnose, monitor or treat medical conditions were invited to pitch their ideas. An immersion at CARE hospitals Hi Tech City gave them the opportunity to vet their ideas with its doctors before the hackathon.

The event was kicked off with guest speakers Prof.ArunTiwari, Director CARE hospitals & co-author of Abdul Kalam's book Wings of Fireand AmbujChaturvedi, Surgeon & Innovation Head, Medtronicinspiring participants with their talk on medical innovation.

During the 2-day hackathon, teams were mentored by health tech innovation expert Surya Rao; Prof.Renu John - Head - Dept of Biomedical Engg - IIT Hyderabad; Mahesh VishwanathIyer and Dinesh Pillaipakkamnatt from Novartis; serial entrepreneur BhatDittakaviandVineelK.Pindi - founder & CEO Collab House.

They were later judged by an eminent panel comprising of Prof Arun Tiwari, Director CARE hospitals; Subodh Deshmukh, Global drug development India head, Novartis; Prof. Mohan Raghavan, IIT Hyderabad; angel investor and startup mentor Dr. Anu Gupta; Dr.Ramesh Babu Byrapeneni - MD Medwin Hospital & Venture Partner;
Venkat Vallabhneni, Partner Parampara Capital; Sanjay Jesrani, Founder and CEO Go North Ventures and Jayaram Valliyur - Head, Amazon Hyderabad.

The guest-of-honour of the event was Mr. Shakthi Nagappan - Director, Life Sciences & Pharma - Telangana Govt.

Speaking about the event, Prof Ramesh Loganathan said, “In a very intense 54 hours, startups had to present their ideas, get feedback, then get accepted for prototyping, get a few people to buy into their idea and join in building the prototype, and finally present to jury and get critical feedback. Through this format, they had to compress several weeks of effort otherwise needed to get the same level of validation and progress. A key factor in deciding if the idea is worthwhile for quitting their present jobs and go headlong into their startups”.

According to Ankur Mehta and Aditya Patro, Community Leads and Global Facilitators of Startup Weekend Hyderabad, this Medtech editon is the only one of its kind in SouthEast Asia.

Winners of the medtech hackathon were:

Sound Sleep – A device, whichdetects below threshold value of sleep apnoea in premature babies and triggers an alarm by connecting to an app on your mobile.

Founders:JoginderTanikella, Mayank Singh, UrvashiKaushik

Dr. Diaper - a colour changing diaper which can detect urinary tract infections

Founders: NarasimhaCheruvu, Siva NagabhushanamSajja, PravinJirvankar

Vivasvat Bio Solutions - A platform for personalized therapy of lung cancer based on their genome mapping of genetic variants.

Founders:BrotoChakrabarty, PrashantiDharanipragada

Special mention: Saakshar - 3D hologram projection-based human anatomy module for medical education students.

Founders: BugudeShivashankar&Thota Anil

Crowd Favourite: Good Samaritan – mobile app that allows users who are near an accident to alert ambulance and other people in the vicinity to callfor help or transport the victim to the nearest hospital.

Founders AshwinPhatak, PhanindraAnala, SiddharthVedulla, LokvamsiAnumukonda, Vishnu Ramesh

The winner gets Rs 5 lakh seedfund and incubation at IIIT-Hyderabad medtech incubator.