Jerlena Project Update - I4H Competition

                                Photo credit Innovation 4 Health 

You may recall that we have been working with a young girl from Cochrane to try and develop a custom 3D printable prosthetic for her. Jerlena was born with her left hand not fully developed. Jerlena and her mom have gone around to local prosthetic clinics but they are consistently told that there is no current off-the-shelf solution for her particular case. 

Jerlena Rittwage was born with an underdeveloped left hand. (CBC ) 

This is why when we heard about her story, we decided that we wanted to try and help. Forming a team to create a solution for her has been much more challenging than we had ever envisioned. This has been incredibly challenging for numerous reasons. We have had many eager volunteers come on board only to see the team later dissolve due to the time and commitment it takes to develop a device like this. 

Colin presenting at I4H Pitch Day (Photo credit Innovation 4 Health) 

Because of this, we decided to pitch her project as part of this years Innovation 4 Health Competition. The theme this year was Child Health and Wellness which was a perfect fit for this project. 

 
Photos courtesy of Innovation 4 Health

Colin went in front of a crowd of about 300 students, innovators, and other challenge champions in early October to present the challenge during Pitch Day. 

 
 
Team formation during Pitch Day (Photo courtesy of Innovation 4 Health)

After presenting the challenge, team formation occurs. During this time participants in an open networking environment sit down and speak to challenge champions to decide which team they want to join. We were very pleased to see overwhelming interest from participants in this project.

 

Team Jerlena (Photo courtesy of Innovation 4 Health)

We were able to form a team of 7 incredible members. Our Team (shown back to front/left to right):

Lindsay: Member of our design team who is using her experience in 3D (CAD) modeling to aid our team in rapidly prototyping our design.

Angela: Member of our business team who is applying her clinical knowledge to advise our team on the necessary considerations for technology and business development within the healthcare system.

Colin: Health Champion who selected the members of our team in order to create a solution for his challenge in child healthcare.

Brandon: Member of our business team who is using his background in kinesiology to ensure our teams design is anatomically compatible. He has also contributed his time to conducting valuable market research.

Evan: Member of our design team who is applying his knowledge of machining help in the manufacturing of our prototypes and ensuring our conceptual designs can practically be built.

Katrin: Member of our design team who was initially selected to advice us on the potential integration of electronic devices into our design and continues to play a important role in prototype development.

Hemanth: Member of our design team who is using his engineering experience to help our team make decisions related to the mechanical systems within our design.

Michael: Member of the business team who is responsible for managing project organization and coordinating between the design and business teams.

 
 
Team meetings to discuss design

The team has been working diligently to create a working prototype in preparation for Demo Day on November 25th. This is the culmination of the competition in which teams present their functional prototypes to a set of judges and the general public with prizes available to winning teams. Demo Day will happen at Telus Spark on November 25th from 4:30-8pm. You can register to attend Demo Day by registering here. 

   
Images of early prototypes

Our friends from Rapid 3D offered their skills and expertise to the team in order to get a high resolution 3D scan which has been instrumental in the development of our prototypes.

 

We are very excited to see the final result from Team Jerlena. Mostly, we are incredibly thankful for the opportunity to participate in the Innovation 4 Health Competition and the incredibly dedicated team working on this project. This team has committed countless hours and many late nights to ensure we have a functional prototype for Demo Day. We will post another update after the November 25th Demo Day. If you have any questions at all about the competition, please contact us here.