“Optimizing Health Span: Living Well at Every Age.”
Finalists for the 10th AnniversaryDesign Challenge 22/23 at the Stanford Center on Longevitywere announced last week. Stanford’s tech-based innovation contest accepted 241 submissions from accredited university design teams in 38 countries around the world. Each year since 2013 there has been a different central theme to the competition and this time designers were asked to consider Optimizing Health Span: Living Well at Every Age.
This Design Challenge also suggested entrants think how they might help “increase the health spans of people in disadvantaged circumstances, which may include poverty, food, housing, or climate insecurity.” As a first glance the eight finalists have zoned in on specific health issues not directed at the circumstances mentioned above. However the “living well at any age” does serve people from teens to pregnant women, and covers a host of issues from oral to mental health.
As an example, here are three of the finalists with advanced technology based designs that reflect a well-considered, wide range of topic areas:
2 Care (Tunghai University, Ming Chi University of Technology, and National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan) – a tool for monitoring periodontal health (e.g. prevention of gum disease).
PaperRoad (Carnegie Mellon University, USA) – an AI-powered wellness platform for teens targeting mental health.
Shakti (University of California, Davis, USA) – an app that detects, educates, and monitors the problem of anemia and iron and folic acid intake in pregnant women.
Reflecting back to the first few years of the Stanford Design Challenge, it is wonderful to see how the emphasis has incrementally broadened further with technology designs directed at older adults and later life stages, to where we are now. Perfect timing, as we are at the front end of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing,where the message about optimizing the promise longevity should be that it is for a life long journey, not just in our later years.
Applying five criteria to judge each entry – impact, originality, feasibility, affordability, and fit-to-theme, the eight the finalist teams were awarded $1,000, assigned to work with a mentor, and will travel to Stanford University compete for the $10,000 first prize in the finals, which will be held on April 25, 2023. So I have three months to research a little more about these finalists before I make my picks for the top three as I’ve joyfully done since the first Design Challenge.
