The CIMIT Prize for Primary Healthcare competition has been launched, and this was one case where a full-court (national) press produced a winning result.In our first year, CIMIT got 78 pre-proposals from 44 universities in 21 states. Ten have been chosen as Finalists, and their completed applications will be due May 31. Announcement of the top winners will be made June 30.
Your Scribe sees several reasons why the applications were numerous and the quality is high:
- A generous prize structure
- An interest in primary care
- An intense drive to inform engineering schools of the competition
To
start, the CIMIT Prize offers a great opportunity. Rarely do 10 finalist
teams get $10,000 each. That amount would be a generous prize for a
winner (remember, most team members are undergrad and grad students).
But to get $10,000 to work on the final version in pursuit of the $150,000
top prize must have inspired many engineers.
Secondly,
the subject matter is appealing. We all know a little something about
primary care; most have pondered about “a better way” while we wait
to be seen when we arrive at a medical office. Numerous entries focused
on ways to store and access one’s medical information so it can be
accessed quickly – and with a guarantee of privacy. Its organizers
identified a real need.
Also,
at CIMIT we were pretty busy. We approached all the engineering deans
in the country; in addition, we contacted chairpersons of bioengineering
and biomedical engineering departments. And we engaged public-affairs
officials at the universities to ask them to spread the word of our
big contest.
We
sent more than 600 emails to engineering honchos to inform – and then
remind - them of the competition. Well, the word got out and many quality
applications came in. In
sponsoring this exciting event, the Gelfand Family Charitable Trust
was sagacious about choosing the focus of the contest and generous about
setting the financial parameters. We look forward to June when the winners
are announced - and to the months after that when many fine ideas to
improve primary care might well be put into action.
Dyke Hendrickson
CIMIT
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