6 weeks, 7 teams and plenty of concrete ideas to reshape the health industry
Terkko Health X 2021 – the ambitious pre-accelerator program for health tech and life science teams is now wrapped up. The entire Terkko Health X program was held remotely, which made it possible for teams outside Helsinki to easily participate in the online workshops and other program content.
Six weeks, tireless business idea crystallization and nearly 30 mentors supporting this year’s teams culminated in the Showcase final on 26.11. The participating teams presented their pitches to the jury at the online Showcase and finally, the jury crowned this year’s winner.
This year’s Terkko Health X winner is Biomedical Spectroscopy Lab! Congratulations! The multi-disciplinary research group of Engineers, Physicists, and Mathematicians focuses on applied spectroscopy and computational biophotonics.
Multidisciplinary teams on a journey to commercialize their ideas
This year, too, the multidisciplinary teams had the expertise and enthusiasm to develop their concepts and were equipped with the most diverse ideas to reshape the health industry. The teams received support in honing their concepts, starting a business, and developing their knowledge of entrepreneurship. The teams have especially praised the opportunity for sharing common challenges with other early-stage teams, getting direct routes to contact the mentors, and learning genuine entrepreneurial skills.
The top 3 teams were selected based on their pitches. The Showcase jury was again made up of skilled professionals from different fields: Johannes Ahlqvist from Sitra, Pinja Krook from Novartis Finland oy, Marko Berg from University of Helsinki and Virpi Muhonen from Askel Healthcare.
This year’s winning team, Biomedical Spectroscopy Lab has developed a novel optical sensor (JEDI) for real-time assessment of connective tissue quality during arthroscopic surgery. The judges thought that their core concept is in great balance, they have specific understanding of their challenge and have gathered a multi-professional team to solve it.
Immunate came in second place, the judges especially liked the team’s timing of market entry and core concept development through the program. Immunate is developing a microscope add-on device to overcome the repeatability issues, with the goal of enabling wide adoptability of 3D cell cultures in cancer research and cancer drug discovery. Foodwaste to Bandage took third place, the judges thought that their idea has the biggest market potential. Foodwaste to Bandage utilizes food waste to make hydrogel polymer bandages at affordable prices.
If you wish to learn more about this year’s teams and their ideas, take a look at our previous blog post.
The winning team Biomedical Spectroscopy Lab is rewarded with a 2,500 € prize, two startup tickets to Slush 2021 and 6 months of Terkko membership for free. The second prize that goes to Immunate includes one startup ticket to Slush and 6 months of Terkko membership for free. The third runner up Foodwaste to Bandage will also get to enjoy a free six-month Terkko membership. Additionally, all teams of Terkko Health X batch 2021 will receive 10K free Amazon Web Service cloud credits thanks to our partner AWS.
If you want to go back to the exciting Showcase mood or hear the teams’ last pitches, the Terkko Health X Showcase recording can be viewed on Terkko’s YouTube channel later.
Terkko Health X 2021 was a success, come join the next program?
What an exhilarating virtual journey it has been. We want to thank all the teams, mentors, judges, and facilitators involved who have taken the time and effort to reshape the health industry! PSST! If you already have a health-related business idea in mind that you would like to develop further with the support of professionals, join the waiting list of Terkko Health X 2022 here!
Now is the time to enjoy the forthcoming Slush and calm down for the Christmas season. See you again at Terkko Health X 2022!
Terkko Health X was co-organized by Helsinki Think Company and Terkko Health Hub and the program was enabled by University of Helsinki, HUS, HiLIFE, Sitra and AWS.