The Medical Device Hackathon (MEDHA) was organized by the Biomedical Engineering & Technology innovation Centre (BETiC), IIT Bombay in collaboration with Venture Center, BJ Medical College, Pune, Symbiosis, College of Engineering Pune, and MIT-ADT, Pune.
On 19 July, we were delighted to host Dr. Shankar Venugopal for a BRBC Venture Base Camp on Innovation and Design Thinking for engineering, design and medical students. The focus was on inventive problem solving and designing technically feasible solutions using the FLOW framework: Focus, Leap & Orient, Whats next.
On 20-21 Juy, the hackathon started off with problem selection from a curated list of 18 unmet clinical needs, compiled by medical professionals. The teams, each comprising a medical student, mechanical engineer, electronics engineer and a product designer, then worked through the night to come up with new ideas and develop a proof-of-concept for ten of the shortlisted clinical problems. These were then presented before a panel of eminent jury members.
Some examples of innovative prototypes that were built overnight include a multifunctional bronchoscope, an ergonomic suction tube for microscopic surgery, an auto suturing device, a system to prevent the occurrence of bedsores, a trocar valve, a haemorrhage control device, an endotracheal tube and a nerve locator.
