New assistive technology aimed at improving the independence of people living with dementia is on the horizon, proven by the 175 applications we received from innovators all over the world. Since the launch of the Longitude Prize on Dementia in September 2022, Challenge Works, alongside Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK, have run outreach activities such as hackathons and ‘ask us anything’ sessions to attract ambitious and innovative artificial intelligence-based solutions that will learn from people living with dementia and adapt to their condition as it progresses.

Entries to the Discovery Awards closed on 26 January 2023. Innovators from every continent, and from 28 countries submitted entries with the greatest number coming from the UK, followed by the United States and Canada.

Solutions entered ranged from: smart wearables, such as smart gloves that learn from the environment of the user to help prompt routines; cognitive interventions, such as virtual reality games with reminiscing opportunities; and smart home devices such as in-home avatars for AI chat companions.

Competing entries in the running for the prize include:

• Wearables – smart glasses to aid memory recollection through story-telling AI and facial recognition; smart gloves to learn from the environment a person is in and help prompt routines, and; activity trackers linked to smartphones to support management of daily activities.
• Cognitive interventions – software to train cognitive skills and prevent further memory problems; virtual reality games featuring reminiscing opportunities to help provide useful cues and prompts for people living with dementia, and; games to help people with dementia maintain and reduce the speed of decline of life skills and brain functions thought to be lost.
• Technology for the home and physical aids – In-home avatars and AI chat companions; personalised indoor lighting informed by daily activity to help alleviate depression, poor sleep and improve wellbeing, and; navigation and walking aids to ensure people are able to safely traverse their environments.

The applications will be assessed by an expert judging panel and feedback from our Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP). The LEAP is composed of people with lived experiences of dementia who will provide insight into how technologies can support and enable independent living for a person with a diagnosis of dementia to ensure solutions are fit for purpose.

What are the Discovery Awards? 

Following assessment and judging, 23 of the most promising, innovative solutions will be awarded £80,000 to further develop and co-create their solutions with the LEAP. In addition to the financial support provided, the teams will receive non-financial expert support in collaboration with international prize partners for their project objectives. Support will include access to data and data storage, technical and business expertise for bringing an AI product to market, and collaborations with people affected by dementia.

In 2024, 5 finalists will be selected to win £300,000 to develop prototypes and test products on the end-users. The winning solution will receive £1 million in 2026.

Challenge Works is exploring opportunities to accelerate innovation in the development of 3D printed biological tissues and organs which have the potential to revolutionise medicine and provide vital alternatives for organ transplants.

The demand for organ replacements continues to outstrip supply, with over 100,000 people on the waiting list in the US alone compared to a supply of only 14,000 organ donors. In the UK, there are currently over 7000 people on the organ transplant waiting list, contributing to high public health costs (for example, to maintain someone with kidney failure on dialysis) as well as risk of deterioration and even death. Last year, over 420 people in the UK reportedly died whilst waiting for a transplant.

We urgently need alternative approaches to meet the global need for organ transplants, as well as other in-vitro applications including drug screening and disease modelling. 3D organ bioprinting is one solution being developed by scientists to tackle these challenges, offering the opportunity to manufacture biologically active 3D human organs grown from a patient’s own stem cells and using accurate computer models based on that patient’s specific parameters. This can allow clinicians and scientists to generate biological organs that are individualised and less susceptible to organ rejection, as well as bypassing the need to wait for donor organs.

However, we are still several years from seeing 3D printed organs, especially complex organs like a kidney, which are suitable for human transplants. Although progress has been made in printing simple organs like cartilage and skin, there remain major technical, ethical and regulatory barriers to overcome before this approach can become widespread and accessible to all for clinical purposes.

This is why Challenge Works is pursuing opportunities to use challenge prizes as a way to drive forward the development of this technology, as well as helping to create new regulatory standards and ensure that outcomes meet those standards.

One of the gaps identified for a prize approach is in the creation of 3D printed blood vessels for application in heart bypass operations. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, which creates a huge global need for improved heart bypass materials and procedures. By bringing together innovators and researchers from across disciplines, a prize can help overcome some of the challenges around printability and materials structure in order to fabricate healthy, functional blood vessels that can dilate and contract in response to hormones in the body.

Another significant challenge to be overcome in the deployment of 3D printed organs is timescale: the current process of fabricating an artificial organ via 3D bioprinting from patient stem cells can take several months, which is too long to be clinically relevant for applications like drug screening. We think that the incentive created by a prize can help accelerate progress towards the ambitious goal of a Four week printed lung, bringing together the innovation potential of advanced and high resolution 3D printing techniques, alongside those with expertise in cell culture and other important steps in the organ fabrication process. Through bringing these experts together with the appropriate support, we know that innovations can deliver the speed, accuracy and efficiency required.

3D bioprinting is an exciting area of development, and a lot of the foundational work is already in place. By providing the incentives and necessary support now, we can accelerate progress towards technologies that can transform our healthcare system.

We think this is an important topic – do you?

Challenge Works is seeking like-minded funders who also see this opportunity and want to work with us on developing our thinking around 3D printed organs.

Get in touch

What is the Four Week Printed Lung Prize?

This Four Week Printed Lung Prize will offer a multi-million pound prize to the first team who can fabricate a functioning 3D printed lung, suitable for drug screening and other in-vitro applications, in a timeframe of Four weeks.

Advances in 3D printing technology over recent decades have created the opportunity to manufacture biologically active 3D human organs for the purpose of organ transplants, as well as drug screening, disease modelling, and other in-vitro applications. However, the current process of fabricating an artificial organ via 3D bioprinting from patient stem cells can take several months, which is too long to be clinically relevant for most applications.

Several key steps are required to successfully print a biologically active organ or organoid (miniature organ), each requiring further development and innovation in the platform technology to increase the speed and efficiency. These include:

• Biobanking to collect patient stem cells
• Preparation of suitable bioink formulations from patient stem cells that optimise both printability and print fidelity
• 3D printing of the extracellular matrix from patient specific 3D models
• Cell culturing to ensure the appropriate self-assembly of patient cells within the structure

With the optimisation of these steps, it is also important to ensure a level of affordability and equity of access for clinicians and researchers for the benefit of patients, ensuring equal access to quality care within the healthcare system. It will also be vital to take all the steps needed to gain regulatory approval for the technology deployed.

Proposed prize structure

Teams may use automation of existing processes and other innovative approaches to reach this goal, but the winning solution must meet the following criteria:

• Timescale: Solutions should start from the point of collecting stem cells from a patient, and end with a functioning organ that is ready to be used for drug screening and other in vitro applications.

• Innovation: Winning solutions should include innovative technologies and/or innovative use of existing technologies to speed up the existing manufacturing workflow.

• Function: The fabricated organ/organoid should be fully vascularised and biologically active, with demonstrated clinical success when used for drug screening purposes.

• Equity of access: Winning solutions should demonstrate a pathway to equity of access to the technology, e.g. via use of open source software and hardware where possible.

• Sustainability: Winning solutions should demonstrate a pathway to financial sustainability, with business models that show a clear route to market (via public or private sector providers) as well as achieving regulatory approval.

The Challenge will be open to teams of innovators led by clinicians, companies and researchers who have demonstrated expertise in:

• 3D printing (biological materials as well as non-biomedical applications)
• Stem cell culturing
• In vitro testing

This prize idea is designed to be a conversation starter, so tell us what you think!

The best prize ideas are developed through extensive research and engagement with experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience of the problems they are focused on. We start with a first draft like the one above – then work to improve, refine and validate our thinking.

We’re particularly keen to have conversations about this idea with potential funders and organisations working in the field. Get in touch if you’re interested – or if you think you have a better idea – and we’ll schedule a call.

Contact our prize teams

What is the Four Week Printed Lung Prize?

This Four Week Printed Lung Prize will offer a multi-million pound prize to the first team who can fabricate a functioning 3D printed lung, suitable for drug screening and other in-vitro applications, in a timeframe of Four weeks.

Advances in 3D printing technology over recent decades have created the opportunity to manufacture biologically active 3D human organs for the purpose of organ transplants, as well as drug screening, disease modelling, and other in-vitro applications. However, the current process of fabricating an artificial organ via 3D bioprinting from patient stem cells can take several months, which is too long to be clinically relevant for most applications.

Several key steps are required to successfully print a biologically active organ or organoid (miniature organ), each requiring further development and innovation in the platform technology to increase the speed and efficiency. These include:

• Biobanking to collect patient stem cells
• Preparation of suitable bioink formulations from patient stem cells that optimise both printability and print fidelity
• 3D printing of the extracellular matrix from patient specific 3D models
• Cell culturing to ensure the appropriate self-assembly of patient cells within the structure

With the optimisation of these steps, it is also important to ensure a level of affordability and equity of access for clinicians and researchers for the benefit of patients, ensuring equal access to quality care within the healthcare system. It will also be vital to take all the steps needed to gain regulatory approval for the technology deployed.

Proposed prize structure

Teams may use automation of existing processes and other innovative approaches to reach this goal, but the winning solution must meet the following criteria:

• Timescale: Solutions should start from the point of collecting stem cells from a patient, and end with a functioning organ that is ready to be used for drug screening and other in vitro applications.

• Innovation: Winning solutions should include innovative technologies and/or innovative use of existing technologies to speed up the existing manufacturing workflow.

• Function: The fabricated organ/organoid should be fully vascularised and biologically active, with demonstrated clinical success when used for drug screening purposes.

• Equity of access: Winning solutions should demonstrate a pathway to equity of access to the technology, e.g. via use of open source software and hardware where possible.

• Sustainability: Winning solutions should demonstrate a pathway to financial sustainability, with business models that show a clear route to market (via public or private sector providers) as well as achieving regulatory approval.

The Challenge will be open to teams of innovators led by clinicians, companies and researchers who have demonstrated expertise in:

• 3D printing (biological materials as well as non-biomedical applications)
• Stem cell culturing
• In vitro testing

This prize idea is designed to be a conversation starter, so tell us what you think!

The best prize ideas are developed through extensive research and engagement with experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience of the problems they are focused on. We start with a first draft like the one above – then work to improve, refine and validate our thinking.

We’re particularly keen to have conversations about this idea with potential funders and organisations working in the field. Get in touch if you’re interested – or if you think you have a better idea – and we’ll schedule a call.

Contact our prize teams

The Global Surgical Training Challenge was a two year prize to enhance low-cost simulation training to surgical practitioners based in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). By creating open source online modules for learning on Appropedia, innovators have created a means for surgeons to learn new procedures via rigorous multimedia online learning plus hands-on practice on simulators that they build themselves.

What makes these simulators so unique is that they are built from locally available materials rather than expensive training devices. The prize challenged innovators to create innovative self assessment processes including techniques such as AI review as well as peer and expert reviews. Learners can validate and hone their own skills rather than rely on the bottleneck of assessment from expert surgeons.

People from 44 countries responded to the initial call for proposals. To keep the focus of the program solidly on surgical problems of most urgency in LMICs, we required that the team leaders for the grants and final prizes be based in LMICs. Ultimately four teams reached the finalist round, and were rigorously evaluated. That process led to declaring a Grand Prize Winner and a Runner-Up Prize.

Funded by The Intuitive Foundation and delivered by us at Challenge Works in collaboration with MIT Solve, The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and Appropedia, this has been an opportunity to build capacity while simultaneously beginning to change the paradigm of surgical training in LMICs.  While the Challenge itself has come to an end, the new self-training surgical model that has come out of this project  will continue with support from the Intuitive Foundation through the SELF: Surgical Education Learners Forum.

And the Grand Prize Award winner is….

Team ALL-SAFE, based in Ethiopia with members in Cameroon, Kenya, and the United States, building surgical self-training modules for laparoscopic skills, has been selected as the GRAND PRIZE winner of $700,000 (USD).

Laparoscopic surgery

Ectopic pregnancy is the leading cause of maternal death, and a significant contributor to infertility in women. Women in sub-Saharan Africa have an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy, with little or no access to minimally invasive, laparoscopic interventions.

ALL-SAFE started the Challenge with a focus on the laparoscopic treatment for ectopic pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa and expanded to include appendectomy. As with many hospitals in the region, donated equipment lay fallow in operating rooms due to the lack of properly training surgeons to use them.

“Some patients have already benefited from laparoscopic surgery because of our training,” says Dr Grace Kim, co-lead for the ALL-SAFE team and clinical associate professor of surgery at University of Michigan Health.  It is an amazing privilege to be able to innovate on behalf of our patients so that safe surgery will be available to all who need it around the world.”

ALL-SAFE plans to continue developing modules, reaching new learners across the globe through scaling their product.

And the Runner Up team is…

Team Tibial Fracture Fixation (TFF), based in Nigeria, has won the runner-up award of $300,000 to continue their work building modules using 3D printing to teach essential fracture management.

Tibial Fracture Fixation

The runner-up team, TFF, uses 3D printed bone models to teach non-orthopedic specialists the various fracture fixation and treatment approaches that may require drilling into bone.

“Being able to train medical officers and non-orthopedic surgeons is a game-changer,” says Dr Habila Umaru, co-team lead for Tibial Fracture Fixation and associate professor of surgery at National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria. “These funds will inspire us to build more teams, to produce more training modules and also present any clinical research data for clinicians so that they can adapt our model for their practice.”

The Challenge Prize model at work

Unlike traditional grant programmes, using a challenge prize model for the Global Surgical Training Challenge created a particularly rich culture of healthy competition, but also a sense of community. The prize happened in stages, where smaller grants called Discovery and Finalists Awards, were given out to the most promising teams in development, allowing them to propel their ideas into reality.

“The Challenge empowered us to show the world how surgical practitioners, educators, and innovators can work together to transform the paradigm of surgical education.” says TFF team co-lead Dr Julielynn Wong, a physician, educator and social entrepreneur.

Alongside The Intuitive Foundation we recruited a panel of expert judges, as well as various organisations and learners to test drive and evaluate the modules that were developed by the innovator teams. Both ALL-SAFE and TFF have reflected that while one of the benefits has been financial support, they found the non-financial support provided by the challenge model to be invaluable. Being able to validate their work and grow their teams has been an experience in itself for ALL-SAFE. 

Every prize we run has a judging panel of experts on board who decides the winners based on the robust criteria we agreed at the beginning of the Challenge. This ensures the process is clear for the innovators, but also for the judges in their decision making. For this particular prize, and out of the four finalists, two were able to get as close as they could to the criteria for winning. 

We take pride in being able to offer a different structure to grant programmes that clearly makes such a difference to our partners and the innovators competing. 

“Challenge Works has a deep experience in running these big multinational prizes in complex medical areas. And it was that combination of being able to help us put an international judging panel together, and coordinate how the prize should be structured. This is why we chose to work with Challenge Works, and it’s been an excellent partnership.” says Catherine Mohr, President of Intuitive Foundation.

What happens after the challenge? 

Launching at COSECSA in 2022, the SELF: Surgical Education Learners Forum is an exciting spin-off building on the success of the Challenge. 

“SELF is the future of surgical training.” says Catherine Mohr. “See one. Teach yourself one. Do one. We want to be able to change the scale of traditional surgical training by allowing learners to teach themselves independent of any presence of a teacher.”

Its aim is to encourage and provide grants to innovators to continue creating modules and for those looking for more accessible ways to train in their surgical skills. It will include partnering with organisations and health facilities to continue with clinical validating new training modules. 

We look forward to seeing the outcomes and impact of the Global Surgical Training Challenge grow and help become the future of surgical training through SELF. 

Thank you to The Intuitive Foundation for helping make this happen.

Want to work with us? Visit the Global Heath priorities page for other projects and prize ideas

What is the Four Week Printed Lung Prize?

This Four Week Printed Lung Prize will offer a multi-million pound prize to the first team who can fabricate a functioning 3D printed lung, suitable for drug screening and other in-vitro applications, in a timeframe of Four weeks.

Advances in 3D printing technology over recent decades have created the opportunity to manufacture biologically active 3D human organs for the purpose of organ transplants, as well as drug screening, disease modelling, and other in-vitro applications. However, the current process of fabricating an artificial organ via 3D bioprinting from patient stem cells can take several months, which is too long to be clinically relevant for most applications.

Several key steps are required to successfully print a biologically active organ or organoid (miniature organ), each requiring further development and innovation in the platform technology to increase the speed and efficiency. These include:

• Biobanking to collect patient stem cells
• Preparation of suitable bioink formulations from patient stem cells that optimise both printability and print fidelity
• 3D printing of the extracellular matrix from patient specific 3D models
• Cell culturing to ensure the appropriate self-assembly of patient cells within the structure

With the optimisation of these steps, it is also important to ensure a level of affordability and equity of access for clinicians and researchers for the benefit of patients, ensuring equal access to quality care within the healthcare system. It will also be vital to take all the steps needed to gain regulatory approval for the technology deployed.

This prize idea is designed to be a conversation starter, so tell us what you think!

The best prize ideas are developed through extensive research and engagement with experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience of the problems they are focused on. We start with a first draft like the one above – then work to improve, refine and validate our thinking.

We’re particularly keen to have conversations about this idea with potential funders and organisations working in the field. Get in touch if you’re interested – or if you think you have a better idea – and we’ll schedule a call.

Contact our prize teams

Mission Possible: The role of challenge prizes in a revitalised UK innovation strategy

Challenge Works has put together a report shedding light on the role of challenge prizes in revitalising the UK Innovation Strategy.

Challenge prizes can complement grants, reduce risk in portfolios of government innovation investments, and can be particularly effective at stimulating near-market innovation targeting specific outcomes and private R&D investment.

READ OUR MISSION POSSIBLE REPORT

Climate change is a global health emergency

For those of us in more temperate countries, enduring soaring temperatures in summer heatwaves might prove sticky and uncomfortable. But all around the world the health of vulnerable populations is being put at risk because of the effects of climate change.

Despite advances in global health made by science and modern medicine, public health outcomes are being worsened by an increase in diseases and challenges caused by a warming world.

But challenges are rarely totally insurmountable. Solving the climate emergency, and adapting to its effects, both need scientific and technological innovation. We saw, with the Covid-19 pandemic, how strategic deployment of state and private resources, accelerated research, and rapid deployment of vaccines, PPE and treatments saved lives.

Across the global innovation challenge prizes I have worked to design, I’ve seen how the combination of technical innovation and creative flair can generate new and unexpected solutions that change people’s lives.

The health impacts of climate change are serious, but we’re not helpless.

The 2022 Pakistan floods

Thirty-three million people have been affected by the recent floods in Pakistan, described as a ‘Monsoon on steroids’ by the UN Secretary General. The devastating rainfall has been linked to an ongoing heatwave which melted glaciers and caused downpours to fall on a scale never seen before. It cannot be doubted that climate change is the cause.

Not only have the rains tragically caused over 1000 people to drown and devastated thousands of homes, they have also provoked a major health crisis. As floodwater deluges homes, it becomes the perfect breeding ground for a whole host of waterborne infectious diseases – from dysentery to cholera.

Wading through water contaminated with sewage causes painful skin infections and fungal disease. Mosquitos thrive in standing floodwaters, causing an increase in malaria and dengue fever which can be hard to treat at a time when access to healthcare is disrupted. The picture is grim, but the list goes on.

Crops have been destroyed and the roads and infrastructure for transporting food have been damaged, leading to food insecurity and ultimately malnutrition, affecting children and the elderly the most.

Physical health is not the only symptom of climate change, there’s also a correlation with a decline in mental health. While we in the West may suffer from climate anxiety, weather events in developing countries have far harsher consequences, causing increased levels of stress and an increase in suicide rates.

Although Pakistan is responsible for just 0.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the effects of melting glaciers are felt hardest by their rural populations who have often never owned a car or had the luxury of flicking on the aircon.

In the aftermath of the floods, these people will go hungry, and many don’t have access to the simple medicine they need to treat infections.

It is clear that the effects of climate change are no longer a far-off dystopian vision, but a frightening reality endangering the lives and livelihoods of those affected around the world.

An unfair climate change burden

But for the thousands of displaced people in Pakistan currently suffering from waterborne and parasitic diseases, we have no time to lose in ensuring that we innovate in a way that means we get the best ideas funded, tested and rolled out at scale as soon as humanly possible.

Climate change is impacting the homes, lives and health of vulnerable people who often barely contribute to CO2 emissions. The tragic floods in Pakistan only makes the search for solutions more urgent than ever.

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how rapidly innovation can advance health systems in response to a health crisis.

The speed of vaccine development has been unprecedented. New, digitally enabled surveillance and tracking techniques were rolled out on a global scale. Data sharing and cross-border co-operation saw clinical procedures established and tested to fight a shared enemy. Innovation was unleashed, and became a crucial enabler to advancing a truly worldwide response to the pandemic.

The pandemic response validated the potential of self-diagnosis and increased use of remote and digital tools to improve peoples’ lives. But the pandemic also exacerbated inequalities between countries and highlighted the vulnerabilities of the growing elderly population in high income countries. Health systems worldwide struggled to cope with the COVID-19 burden, this was more acute for under-resourced settings.

Diagnostic tests and vaccines went to the highest global bidders. By September 2021, of the 3.2 billion diagnostic tests performed worldwide 0.4% were used in LMICs3, 1.9% of the 5.82 billion vaccine doses were administered in lower resourced settings. This inequity made people living in LMICs angry and they have begun demanding a larger role in developing, testing and manufacturing life-saving health technologies locally.

The unequal distribution of COVID-19 diagnostic tests and vaccines was deemed a “moral failure” by the Director-General of the WHO.

The inequity in global healthcare provision was put under the spotlight during COVID-19, but it is a far greater issue that reaches far outside the pandemic response, and is not limited only to low- and middle-income countries. It is a problem on a global scale, but one that can be solved with ambition and the right incentives.

Assistive tech for people living with dementia

Challenge Works’ prizes unearth the boldest innovations to improve healthcare. They are designed to make an impact for people in diverse situations, both in high- and low- and middle-income countries.

The Longitude Prize on Dementia – a partnership with Innovate UK and Alzheimer’s Society – is incentivising the creation of a new generation of AI and Machine Learning-enabled technologies designed to adapt to the changing condition of a person living with dementia, so that they can keep doing the things in life that bring them purpose and enjoyment.

Democratising access to surgery

Access to surgery in lower and middle income countries (LMICs) is stymied by a lack of trained surgeons and other practitioners that are performing surgeries. But most surgical training programmes are expensive and resource intensive.

They rely on access to cadavers, live animal training models and expensive technology-driven simulation-based training. Therefore, many LMIC-based practitioners often have less hands-on experience before operating on patients.

The Global Surgical Training Challenge is transforming training opportunities for general surgeons and clinical and medical officers that want to perfect or learn new procedures.

Effective upskilling means increased access for patients. For example medical officers who have been trained to perform bone fixation after a serious break will help ensure that patients avoid gangrene and potential loss of a limb.

Diagnostics for a silent pandemic

Antimicrobial resistance poses a significant threat to humanity. Described as a silent pandemic, in 2019, more than 1.2 million people worldwide – and potentially millions more – died as a direct result of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

In a recent report, health leaders have warned that antimicrobial resistance has become a leading cause of death globally, killing around 3,500 people every day.

No new antibiotic has been discovered since 1962 for the treatment of Gram-negative bacterial infections. Testing plays a critical role in reducing antibiotic resistance by improving diagnosis of infections to prevent unwarranted use of antibiotics, and to rapidly detect and contain resistant infections.

The £8m Longitude Prize on AMR has incentivised innovators to develop rapid diagnostic tests to identify whether infections are bacterial, whether they require antibiotics and which antibiotic to prescribe.

Now entering its final judging period, multiple diagnostic tests have been developed in pursuit of the prize, aiming to cut the 3-day time to result of traditional diagnostic testing to as little as an hour. But it is only one piece of the puzzle, the world needs new antibiotics, new stewardship programmes and new approaches to treating infections.

Incentivising innovation beyond health

Outside of health, our prizes in disability and assistive technology also demonstrate the impact challenge prizes can have. The Mobility Unlimited Challenge – funded by the Toyota Mobility Foundation – incentivised innovators to reimagine the wheelchair, a design fundamentally unchanged for a century.

The winner, a Scottish designer, himself a wheelchair user, was awarded $1 million for the Phoenix i. The lightweight carbon-fibre chair uses sensors and AI to continuously shift the chair’s centre of gravity as its user moves – creating an intuitive experience for its user. Following the win in 2020, he is now on course to bring this revolutionary design to market thanks to the prize.

Challenge prizes galvanise innovators, entrepreneurs and industry disruptors to bring forward much needed solutions to complex and seemingly intractable issues. They are a tried and tested method of attracting new innovators to change the status quo.

We partner with institutions, foundations, charities and governments to co-design and launch challenge prizes that improve access to quality healthcare around the world.

Challenge prizes catalyse transformational change and mobilise the creativity of people from diverse disciplines at a global level.

Talk to us about the global health challenges you want to see solved and discuss how together we can develop bold prizes that incentivise innovators to address the most urgent national and international health needs.

More about Global Health

The Global Surgical Training Challenge team have today released a short documentary, which profiles each of the four finalists and their innovative surgical training modules.

This 11-minute video takes viewers to Guatemala, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Ghana to meet the teams of clinicians and innovators addressing the need for surgical skills training in low and middle income countries. It introduces some of the learners who have been building the surgical training simulators and using these online teaching modules to learn skills in laparoscopy, reconstructive surgery, orthopaedics, and pre-hospital trauma care.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CHALLENGE

The Global Surgical Training Challenge has announced the four finalist teams who will receive up to US$500,000 to support the further development of their open-source surgical training models.

The four teams include members from multiple continents and represent a variety of surgical specialties, including obstetrics, orthopedics, trauma, and reconstructive surgery. Over the last year, they have been working with the Global Surgical Training Challenge partners through workshops and mentoring sessions, to refine their models.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CHALLENGE

It’s hard to believe that a year ago, the term Covid-19 did not exist in our vocabulary.

In only a handful of months, a respiratory virus has swept the world, killed 1.5 million people, wrecked lives and livelihoods, and caused economic contractions not seen in centuries. True, some countries have handled things far better than others, some far worse.

The news in recent weeks that novel vaccines are clinically effective at protecting us from the virus and are set to be rolled out to populations in a matter of days and weeks is remarkable for so many reasons. The first is of course the possibility of life returning to something reflecting normal, but also the astonishing speed with which the world has mobilised to produce, test, verify, approve and manufacture a new vaccine.

The emergency use approval of various Covid-19 vaccines is not the only medical development of note in recent days. The NHS in England is to trial a blood test designed to detect more than 50 types of cancer. Created by California-based Grail, the test – known as a liquid biopsy – will be trialled on 165,000 people to determine its effectiveness in identifying the genetic markers of cancers to catch them far earlier in their development.

Designing public services targeted to the older person

The number of people aged 60 years or older will rise from 900 million to 2 billion between 2015 and 2050 according to the World Health Organization.

This is significant and presents major challenges for governments everywhere. The UN’s ‘World Population Ageing’ report in 2015 stated “it is more important than ever that governments design innovative policies and public services specifically targeted to older persons”.

Since 2015, much work has been done globally to highlight the true impact and complex web of issues surrounding ageing. This includes rising healthcare costs, pressured pension schemes, housing issues, caregiving, and the impact of cognitive decline.

The reality is that, as we age, we are more likely to develop physical or mental impairments linked to or resulting from multiple long-term conditions such as cardiovascular disease or dementia.

The prevalence of disabilities, physical illnesses and mental health issues, such as depression and social isolation, increases as we age. These changes can have major impact on our quality of life and the ability to complete everyday tasks.

UK health and social care services are already strained by the ageing population. From increased demand and will need to focus more on early detection and better prevention, as well as approaches which help older people to better self-manage their conditions and live healthier lives.

Individualised solutions for a demanding population

While the world has woken up to the huge societal challenge – as shown by the wealth of research papers, policy documents and continual debate – actually developing solutions to solve the plethora of problems has been patchy.

However, user-focused technology is now changing that.

Digital technologies, digital infrastructure and data production are already revolutionising our day-to-day lives and hold the power to be transformative in supporting healthy and active ageing.

Digital solutions can automate aspects of the home and improve efficiency to make our lives easier. They can provide us with a greater degree of interaction and communication, provide personalised support and care, and allow health and human services to be delivered remotely.

A savvy ageing population

As the baby boomer generation ages, they – and their wallets – are demanding better designed and more sophisticated technology and will increasingly refuse to settle for stigmatising or unattractive products and services.

They increasingly want more technological developments and, perhaps most importantly of all, they want suppliers to focus on them as customers – not as patients, end users, or care clients.

Many of these technologies will create large cost savings for health and social care, by removing some of the need and/or desire for traditional public healthcare facilities.

Yet, this change won’t happen on its own. Significant barriers remain to be overcome such as interoperability between devices, institutional inertia, developing sustainable business models, and designing usable, functional and stylish products that people want to use. To name just a few.

Innovation as a strategy

The US is one example of a nation keen to harness technology to support its ageing population. In March 2019, the government released its new report ‘Emerging Technologies to Support an Ageing Population’ that highlighted six key ways in which technology has the potential to help people live longer, healthier and more independent lives. The report recommends Research & Development (R&D) and advances in technology to address the six challenges:

• Key activities of daily living (eating well, managing medication etc);
• Cognitive skills (training and systems to help individuals live safely and independently);
• Communication and social connectivity (in relation to hearing loss, social isolation and loneliness);
• Personal mobility;
• Access to transportation, and;
• Access to healthcare.

The report acknowledges that getting these cutting-edge innovations into homes and communities requires R&D across a wide range of disciplines spanning the public, private, and philanthropic sectors.

UK government’s plan to increase life expectancy

The UK government’s target for people to enjoy at least five extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035 can be achieved by harnessing the power of innovation to help meet the needs of the ageing society.

Under the Industrial Strategy Fund, the government is investing up to £98 million in research and innovation that supports people as they age, while also helping those that care for them – the Healthy Ageing Challenge is part of this solution.

Through the challenge, government will bring together UK businesses and researchers to support people to stay in their homes for longer, tackle loneliness, and increase independence and wellbeing – although the initiative is very much in its infancy.

Technology meets the National Health Service

It’s clear that globally, a spark has been ignited and there is now a strong appetite to develop technology-led solutions that address care, healthcare, independent living and cognitive issues.

In the UK, the NHS is taking technology seriously when it comes to an ageing demographic. One example is a tablet loaded with an app that gives practitioners access to all the data they need to deliver care, wherever they are.

A community nurse could use a smartphone to take regular photos of a bed sore to monitor its progress using the app, which colleagues can also securely access, supporting better clinical decision making and improving care outcomes.

Further afield, China, India and Japan are making great strides in developing responses to their ageing demographics. China is experimenting with entire urban developments designed specifically for the elderly. Scientists in India have developed the ‘MindEye’ that diagnoses dementia non-invasively by just tracking a person’s eye movements, before the symptoms even appear. In Japan, their rapidly greying society is demanding fast, technology-driven solutions such as the Shichifukujin app that collates data to manage diabetes.

Getting ahead of the game

While this is all encouraging, unlocking creative, fresh ways of thinking and new ideas in a timely manner is the priority; and waiting for researchers and business to deliver new innovations may not be the only answer.

With ageing presenting such a huge societal challenge on the very near horizon, leveraging innovators and inventors in today’s fast-paced digital age requires an additional mechanism – one that fast-tracks ideas through to effective products and solutions and seeks out ideas from non-traditional as well as traditional sources.   

Challenge prizes incentivising more people to consider the needs of ageing populations

One model that is proving to be a game-changer is the challenge or incentive prize initiative. They incentivise innovation from both in and outside of a specific sector, enabling the development of technology for issues that pose a current problem or are anticipated to be a problem in the future.

The success of the challenge prize model is largely due to the fact that it’s an open market initiative, encouraging submissions from everyone and anyone.

A solution could come from a teenager designing software in her bedroom, to a new start-up that desperately needs seed funding to develop its breakthrough idea.

Challenge prizes go one-step further than a grant or financial prize by offering additional support from experts and consultants, access to data sandboxes to test solutions, and introductions to new partnerships. Added value comes at the end of the challenge prize when all intellectual property is retained by the winners, enabling them to take their solution on to commercial development.

Challenge prizes are a global solution to global problems

The US has recently increased its number of challenge prizes recognising the value that they can bring to a variety of sectors by seeking new thinking from unlikely sources.

‘Challenge’ is open to members of the public to help the US government solve problems big and small. For example, the “Improving Care for People with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias Using Technology (iCare-AD/ADRD)” Challenge aims to improve the quality of care for persons living with Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias.

It stimulates innovation in the use of technology to improve care coordination and/or navigation and/or aid with the care experience, to improve the overall quality of overall dementia care.

Overcoming the ageing population challenge in the UK

In the UK, Challenge Works has been working with partners from the health, care, voluntary and social enterprise sectors to test and scale new ideas in ageing for a number of years.

Our effective challenge prize design experience means that, from concept to winner announcements, the whole process can be fast-tracked without compromising quality of response or deliverables. For example, in September 2012, we launched the Ageing Well Challenge Prize to unearth fresh ideas to reduce social isolation and/or help people stay mobile and active for longer.

The evolution of challenge prizes

Challenge Dementia finalists were announced a few months ago. This challenge prize was pioneered by Essex County Council and supported by Challenge Works alongside partners PA Consulting, Alzheimer’s Society and Tech UK.

They have developed an impressive range of trailblazing technology and design-driven innovations to improve the lives of people living with dementia in just under one year.

The beauty of the challenge prize was that one of the finalists was an 11-year old boy who had developed a personal solution featuring a touchscreen with a range of functions – all based on his experience with his great-grandfather who had dementia.

Since this blog was first published we have launched the Longitude Prize on Dementia. This challenge aims to find ways to use machine learning to help those in the early stages of the disease to live independently for longer

Longitude Prize on Dementia

Challenge prizes are opening up the field for innovation

Burgeoning social innovators, and those who are starting out today with little more than an idea drawn on the back of an envelope have many initiatives to mull over. Some of these ideas will only see the light of day thanks to forward-thinking initiatives like challenge prizes.

We will need to utilise the best ideas to address the many issues and challenges of our ageing population.

We have to open up the field so that everyone in society has an opportunity to play a part in designing support for our relatives, friends and neighbours. Challenge prizes provide this opportunity through their open market model. With very little time at our disposal, any way that we can leverage innovation is important not only to ageing individuals, but to our economy and society as a whole.