It has been a defining time for the Longitude Prize on Dementia – a whirlwind 15 months since we welcomed our finalists into our offices to kick off the Finalist Phase of the Prize, before travelling to Geneva for the Alzheimer Europe Conference, where we publicly announced the five selected teams. Now, as we gear up towards the end of the four-year prize and the much-anticipated selection of the £1 million winner, it is time to pause and reflect on what has been accomplished so far.
While there are many milestones to celebrate and aspects to reflect on, from the independent Product Evaluation Study conducted by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) to the involvement of the Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP), this piece focuses on three core themes: innovator growth, the impact of innovator support, and the finalists’ camaraderie.
Innovator growth
First and foremost, we’ve seen our finalist teams grow, be stretched, and take strides to develop their assistive technology solutions. They began this phase with great ambition, backed by £300,000 in funding and non-financial support to achieve their goals. We have seen the teams make immense progress, from securing their first paying customers and spinning out into new companies, to receiving encouraging feedback from user testers and impressing the LEAP.
Each team embarked on its own innovator journey, balancing technical development with co-designing and testing with people living with dementia. They explored manufacturing partnerships, researched the market, defined their brand, and attended events to showcase their solutions and connected with investors. As with any intricate innovation journey, it’s no surprise that teams have pivoted along the way. Whether due to new partnership opportunities or to overcome supply chain and macroeconomic hurdles, teams had to act quickly to minimise delays and maintain their trajectory towards their overarching goal.
A common challenge, however, has been recruiting users to test the solutions and participate in LSE’s Product Evaluation Study. While many people are keen to try products that could significantly improve their lives or those of their loved ones, adopting technology among the older population can be complex. If purpose, safety, and data privacy aren’t communicated effectively, potential pilot study participants may be deterred. The finalist teams expertly navigated this by establishing clear data and ethics standards (an important part of their final winner application submissions) and conveying their genuine passion for impact.
A key learning shared by the teams is that, even when the person living with dementia is the primary user, introducing novel technology often requires the endorsement of a carer. In some cases, the product could be presented as a gift from a family member or carer. In others, a person living with dementia with higher autonomy can independently choose if the product is right for them. Nonetheless, it takes the buy-in of the "dyad" – the person living with dementia and their carer–to choose, set up, and personalise the solution. These insights have informed the finalists’ business and commercialisation plans, as well as the different approaches they can trial to get the technology into people’s hands.
Another particularity of testing with people with dementia is the impact of disease progression and diagnostic processes on pilot testing. Even when users are eager to participate, unpredictable changes in their condition can prevent them from continuing, making it difficult to gather evidence on solutions for advanced dementia. Furthermore, diagnostic processes vary globally; in some regions, formal diagnosis only occurs at later stages. This led teams to adapt their co-design and testing strategies, sometimes relying on self-diagnosis, carers’ testimonies, and cognitive scoring – such as the Quick Dementia Rating System or Mini-Mental State Examination – rather than formal, medical diagnosis to catalogue their users.
These complexities highlighted that success isn't just about the technology, but the support structures around it, as you’ll see below.
Innovator support
While a prize’s financial incentives are imperative for the development of innovators’ solutions, a key component of our prizes is the non-financial support we offer teams. The Longitude Prize on Dementia was no exception. We provided a rich combination of one-to-one mentorship, a 12-week business scaling bootcamp, expert surgeries, pitch practice sessions, and co-creation workshops. For the Finalist Phase, the programme offered technology and product development support, user-centered design and testing, and business and scaling workshops.
Teams consistently praised the support programme, describing it as "highly beneficial," "valuable," and "accommodating." We view this as a major success, given that crafting an effective programme is challenging when teams have very different products, business models, levels of expertise, and geographic locations. The key to success was working with flexible, well-connected partners who could assist the teams at various stages of their journey. The innovators appreciated the delivery partners' willingness to adapt to support their timelines and offer customised support through hand-picked mentors.
We learned that offering support is a fine balance between encouraging uptake and respecting the teams' agency. While the teams undoubtedly found the support offered valuable and group workshop attendance was excellent, some teams did not use all their allocated mentorship time due to the pressures of this period. Although nudging teams and redistributing hours helped, the busy nature of the phase meant not every resource could be fully maximised.
Sense of cohort
One of the most encouraging takeaways from this process was the sense of community built during this phase – a significant merit given the competitive nature of prizes. Hosting an in-person induction camp to kick off the Finalist Phase and celebrate the teams was key. Teams travelled from across the globe (some nearly 17,000 km) to London and then Geneva for the Alzheimer Europe Conference, where we huddled around a mobile phone to watch the public announcement of the finalists on the BBC The One Show.
This sense of shared purpose continued throughout the Finalist Phase. While we facilitated group workshops and attendance at relevant events, the teams took the initiative to forge their own connections outside of the Prize’s structure. This ranged from UK teams catching up during London Tech Week to a truly global exchange spanning hemispheres, where a UK finalist travelled to visit their Australian peers at their university. Their meeting underscored mutual respect and an undertone of healthy competition, acknowledging that the 'true win' lies in accelerating progress across all teams and in ensuring a legacy that carries forward long after the winner is announced.
In a sector where innovation can be isolating, the opportunities for connection were invaluable. For future prizes, we must reflect on how to intentionally cultivate this ‘cohort feeling’. While some teams may naturally be guarded and more wary about sharing information in a competition environment, finding spaces to foster open collaboration can be truly enriching. Yet, in practice, how do we ensure connection in global prizes when teams are dispersed across geographies and time zones, with limited face-to-face engagement? And how do we ensure fairness, given that there may be more opportunities for overlap among teams that are geographically proximate, such as in the UK and Europe? While these questions don’t have a straightforward answer, we are committed to addressing them.
Conclusion of the Finalist Phase
As this phase wraps up this December 2025, and once teams submit their applications, we hope they can pause to ponder and celebrate all they have achieved over the last 15 months. The journey to this point has been demanding, but the growth, resilience, and collaboration shown by the finalists have been nothing short of inspiring. As the Challenge Works team, we will take these reflections to continue improving our methodology for future prizes. But for now, we look forward with anticipation to the final judging process and the announcement of the £1 million winner in March. The Longitude Prize on Dementia may soon be ending, but the impact of these innovations is only just beginning.
