The Chicago Innovation Exchange and the Chicago Department of Public Health today announced the five teams advancing to the next round of the CIE Healthy Chicago Innovation Challenge. On Feb. 9, the teams will take the stage to pitch their ideas for improving the health of Chicagoans. Two teams will be selected to pilot their program with the support of the CIE and CDPH.
“We are excited to work with the Chicago Innovation Exchange to bring students to the forefront of contributing innovative solutions to our challenges,” said CDPH Chief Innovation Officer Jay Bhatt. “This is a great opportunity for us to teach students and enhance the city’s public health work force, but it is also an opportunity for us to learn from the students of our city.”
The five semi-finalist teams include students from the University of Chicago and its Chicago Booth School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology, IIT Institute of Design, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, and Northeastern Illinois University. Their proposals target problems ranging from food poisoning and restaurant inspections to sexually transmitted diseases, health and nutrition education, and discharge processes to reduce re-hospitalization.
The CIE Healthy Chicago Innovation Challenge was designed by CDPH and the CIE to spark innovation around the public health challenges facing Chicago.
“The CIE Healthy Chicago Innovation Challenge aligns with our mission to inspire students from the University of Chicago and other local universities to pursue innovative ventures,” said John Flavin, executive director of the Chicago Innovation Exchange. “Our partnership with CDPH gives students the chance to experience the entrepreneurial process of developing a solution to a real-world problem and testing it in the marketplace.”
The five semi-finalist teams are:
Aditya Kundu, Gopal Krishna Bhatia, Alaa Ayach, and Urvashi Poonia, from the Illinois Institute of Technology, aim to decrease the number of food-poisoning cases in Chicago using predictive analytics on Twitter data and flagging potentially dangerous restaurants for inspection.
Alexandra Goodwin and Jonathan Park from the Chicago Booth School of Business, and first-year Economics student Ruslan Shchetinin, all from the University of Chicago, are working to improve the hospital-to-extended-care-facility discharge process and re-hospitalization rates through the use of mobile technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Universal Prayther and Yesser Barbar from Northeastern Illinois University and Ashina Hicks from IIT Chicago Kent College of Law plan to use technology to improve nutrition education to lead to healthier food selections by individuals in food deserts.
Kunmi Sobowale, a fourth-year student in the Pritzker School of Medicine; fourth-year in Economics Sneha Elango, Sebastian Gallegos, a PhD student in Economics; and Anne Knapke, a graduate student in Public Policy, all from the University of Chicago, propose using insights from behavioral economics to increase monetary savings in low-income families during pregnancy in order to improve health outcomes for their children.
Ariana Shadlyn, Amanda Rosenberg, Betina De Gorordo Bolado and Karolina Kohler, from the Institute of Design at IIT intend to tackle sexually transmitted disease rates through a risk assessment and home testing kit for women.
The public is invited to attend the pitch day at the Chicago Innovation Exchange on Feb. 9 to hear the teams describe their ideas and see who wins the chance to pilot their programs in the city of Chicago.
The Chicago Innovation Exchange at the University of Chicago provides space for proof-of-concept work, business incubation, collaboration opportunities, and programming to facilitate innovation and commercialization. UChicago faculty, students, staff and local entrepreneurs are welcome to become members of the CIE. Learn more at http://cie.uchicago.edu or by following the @ChicagoCIE on Twitter.
Improving the health and well being of all Chicagoans by creating safer and healthier homes is a priority in CDPH's citywide health agenda, Healthy Chicago.
Visit www.CityofChicago.org/HEALTH for more information.
—Prof. Chuan He
