Bethesda, Maryland Jun 11, 2021 (Issuewire.com) - The Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) and its collaborators – Resonance Philanthropies, Children’s National Hospital, and Digital Infuzion – have partnered to launch 2021-2022 Innovate Children’s Health Challenge. This year’s challenge focuses on technologies that address pandemic resiliency and prevention in the pediatric population. CAI, headquartered in Maryland, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that matches entrepreneurial talent with breakthrough inventions to launch startups and connect them with capital – a trifecta – innovation + talent + capital. With philanthropic support from Resonance Philanthropies – a donor advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation – and Digital Infuzion – a Maryland-based information technology firm – CAI will launch 15+ startups through Innovate Children’s Health II. Children’s National, a nationally ranked children’s hospital recognized for its expertise and innovation in pediatric care, will contribute to the clinical validation of selected technologies.
Innovate Children’s Health II seeks to advance diagnostics, therapeutics, and digital health tools that address pediatric mental health. Startups will compete for the opportunity to commercialize these promising mental health solutions from Children’s National and CAI’s other research partners.
There are three ways to participate in the Innovate Children’s Health II:
- Entrepreneurial-minded people – alone or as members of multidisciplinary teams – may compete to commercialize vetted inventions, selected out of patents and patent applications from CAI’s research partners by a committee of industry experts and potential investors
- Existing startups may enter the challenge with other public health-related inventions, including their own and/or others to which they have access
- Participants may submit ideas that they believe will improve emergency preparedness and pandemic response. CAI will help ideators create a business model to advance their solutions
Innovate Children’s Health II partners will spin out anti-pandemic pediatric startups by leveraging CAI’s award-winning, four-phase challenge-accelerator platform, which has directly created 900+ new jobs, trained 3500+ entrepreneurs, advanced 300+ inventions, and launched 300+ companies since 2014.
Sheri Sobrato Brisson, the co-founder of Resonance Philanthropies, said, "COVID-19 has added to the already serious toll on children’s health around the world. Countless children are now hungry and impoverished. I'm delighted to join Children’s National and Digital Infuzion in supporting CAI and the Innovate Children’s Health Challenge II, based on the challenge that Resonance Philanthropies launched with CAI in 2020, to urgently meet the needs of children in our communities."
Rosemarie Truman, Founder, and CEO of CAI added, “Children’s health is under-served; we seek to continue to amplify new solutions and investment in the area, now and for the future. Launching the first and second challenges would not be possible without the kind and generous support from Resonance Philanthropies. We’re thrilled to be launching our second challenge also in partnership with Children’s National and Digital Infuzion.”
Innovate Children’s Health II partners are sourcing and evaluating teams and inventions for the challenge now. Inventors and technology licensing officers may submit inventions to be evaluated and made available for licensing to challenge winners through the form at http://bit.ly/iphealth. The Innovate Children’s Health II will accept invention submissions until September 1st, 2021.
Anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit and interest in stopping current and future pandemics can sign up to learn more about the challenge at http://bit.ly/innovate4kids.
Teams can begin enrolling in the challenge now at https://form.jotform.com/CAIStartups/innovate4kids.
ABOUT CAI:
The Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) is a global public-private partnership, non-profit focused on creating a virtuous circle of innovation and driving growth breakthroughs through novel, creative paradigms, and models. CAI’s mission is to accelerate and increase the volume of technology commercialization to ignite entrepreneurship, bolster the global economy, and maximize the potential of promising inventions. CAI’s award-winning challenge-based accelerator, rigorous evidence-based due diligence, and capital-efficient lean management models serve to hyper-accelerated “gazelle” high-performing startups for outsized investor returns. For additional information about CAI, please visit http://www.thecenterforadvancinginnovation.org.
Media Contact
Center for Advancing Innovation r.truman@caistartups.org 2024382208 9508 Burning Tree Rd http://www.thecenterforadvancinginnovation.org/
