Thursday, July 6th. The day marking the invigorating start of our future doing real work for real problems. Consisting of iCan, PRA Pediatric Research, PRA Rare Diseases, Accelerator, and the MIT Bike Team, CentennialX creators are filled with blossoming ideas and rising nervousness. The creators are crunched for time as they each discover more and more about their challenges and find effective and swift ways to help people around the world.
PRA Rare Diseases, constructed of both Upper Dublin (Team Axon) and William Tennent students (Team Sparse), are trying to find a way to connect patients struggling with rare diseases, doctors that could treat them, and researchers that are working to help find a cure or solution for these rare diseases. “It’s difficult.” said Jamie Prince from Upper Dublin, “There’s no set direction to take and there’s a lot of unanswered questions.”
Another team working with PRA Health Sciences, Team Fathom, is trying to find a way to simplify medical processes and clinical trials for children, thus enabling them to gain an understanding of the procedures that they may undergo. Team Fathom is considering making either an app or a tangible object that is interactive and teaches the child the information they need to know while also maintaining his/her attention.
Partnered with Eli Lilly and the International Children’s Advocacy Network (iCAN), Team triALL is looking to advance and improve the relationships with pediatric patients and their doctors to ensure that any and all children are receiving the best care that they can get. Traveling to Orlando, Florida next week, Team triALL is leading a brainstorming session to gather information from advocates and try to incorporate their ideas when creating their solution. Although they’ve had some minor setbacks, they are still determined to work with the resources they have and create a better experience for children around the world. Their ultimate goal is to give our future generation the voices to shift and reform the medical field.
Connecting with a previous challenge, Team Ignite is working to accelerate the solutions that were created last year. The goal was to create a kit that effectively taught children about a specific disease of the groups’ choice. The challenge this year, however, is using those kits to create an even better product that achieves the same goal and is available for schools and hospitals to purchase and use.
The final team, Team Uili (pronounced ‘wheel-y’) has a challenge quite unique. Partnered with MIT, this team was asked to improve the lives of cyclists by creating some type of product that eliminates some problems they may face. After visiting the Keswick Cycle Shop in Glenside, PA, and surveying cyclists on their email list, they found the most common issues amongst bike riders is safety, weather, and repairs. Considering the team (unfortunately) cannot control the weather and they have such a small time frame, they wanted to focus on safety and apparel. By narrowing in on one issue, Team Uili decided to design an athletic sock line that combines breathable fabric, reflective material, and style to create the ultimate sock for cyclists. Their goal is to create a prototype for the sock and hopefully get their product on the market.
All teams share the same bittersweet feeling of the start of a new, unknown path. The possibilities are absolutely endless, giving each group dozens of different routes to take. Although each team varies, they all have one thing in common: the ability to change the world.