Team ConFusion - Ubis (Operating Room Safety )

Our goal is to create a device that helps the scrub nurse during the counting of the surgical instruments in all the surgical phases. It would also simplify the compilation of paperwork.

Our project initially focused on:


understanding the users involved in the use of the surgical kit


understanding in which processes the surgical kits are involved

understanding the dynamics of the hospital

Our interviews were focused on to people we know that have roles in the health field, and our goal was to better understand the processes involved in the kit and in looking for the problems related to its use or points of improvement.

We started to study more in deep to dynamics of the operating room, especially regarding the control and the counting of the instruments - and we started also to study our users' needs. Among all the dynamics of the operating room, we found an interesting area of opportunity which is the way that the scrub nurse deals with the instruments. As she is the one who is responsible for all the instruments inside the operating room from setting them up before the operation starts to passing them also to the surgery.

Ubis is composed of two main parts: a wearable necklace (Ubis Necklace) and a supporting docking station (Ubis Dock)

In our system, the nurse wears a necklace the collects all the data about what is happening in the surgery room (i.e. the quantity and the kind of instruments counted) thanks to a camera and a microphone. Since the scrub nurse is the only person who is responsible for passing the instruments to the surgeon, the camera captures all the area that she is seeing.


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Team Prometheus - BubbleNet (Digital marketing and data privacy)

Thanks to the growth of the internet, the digital advertising was increased very quickly. The data of 2017 speaks clear. According to an eMarketer report, last year, the worldwide spending on digital advertising was $223.74 billion. The format is expected to see double-digit growth through at least 2020.

The source of some problems is caused by an unbalanced system. Indeed, today the advertising system is composed by the interaction of four actors: a company, an intermediary (the digital advertising network), a publisher and the consumer.

Our solution is the result of studies and researches about the useful technologies and interviews to our potential target. We did some tests and interviews in Bologna to obtain feedback about our ideas and a basic prototype. Thanks to these tests, we discovered that the most serious problem was the user’s privacy and we understood that the people want a not annoying tool to receive info.

After the interviews, we focused on the technologies used for our project. Our proposed solution is Bubblenet: a digital platform that brings customized information to users, guaranteeing their anonymity and giving them full control over their data.

We based our idea on our researches. Advertising is everywhere
on our personal devices but often people consider it annoying, intrusive and a waste of time. What research, interviews, a look at the statistics and our personal experience confirm as well. Furthermore, people are becoming more aware and worried about their privacy and what companies know about them During some tests to young people, we discovered that the most serious worry is the safety of privacy, and the data confirms this trend. They aren’t conscious of their data on the web and usually, they don’t read the terms and conditions that they accept. We use this answers to implement our project.

The system consists of three integral parts:


Machine learning

Digital platform

The technological device


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Team Wu - CORTEX (Decentralised and distributed network for academic records)

CORTEX is a decentralized and distributed network that keeps safe and verifies individual academic records. CORTEX is a private blockchain with only an academic purpose, in which the courses approved and degrees obtained by a student are recorded as transactions in the student personal profile. Using blockchain we can create a decentralized and reliable system, and by using biometrics technologies we can create a paperless system which is always available to the users.

The inspiration for our project is the true story of two brothers Mohammad and Mahmoud, Syrians refugees whom we have interviewed during our research. After a long and tough journey, they are now living in Spain. With great efforts Mohammad managed to bring his academic certificates to Spain. This allowed him to find a decent job in his field of expertise and apply for a master degree. However, Mahmoud couldn’t bring his academic certificates as he was in the middle of his studies when he had to flee Syria. Today he is not able to finish his studies and find a decent job as he lost everything and can’t prove his academic qualifications to resume his life. It may sound unbelievable, but today in the 21st-century people can lose the power to use their education, and one of the reasons is the current anachronic system of educational certificates based on paper and middle-men verification.

We envision CORTEX as a sustainable nonprofit organization. The profits generated are first reinvested on maintaining the system, while the remaining is reimbursed to the academic institutions that support the system as computing nodes. Our main objective is to onboard prestigious institutions for the first three years and demonstrates the value proposition of using CORTEX, we will then move to onboarding group of institutions and eventually envision CORTEX to be a global protocol.


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Team Sutherland - Sentra (The Sensory Training System of the Future)

SENTRA is the suit of the future. It looks like a regular combi suit, but actually, it consists of a lot more. This haptic suit will make your own virtual experience a lot more realistic than other methods, such as Virtual Reality glasses, Augmented Reality glasses, etc.

Our product is designed to psychologically train the people who need to be prepared for acting properly in emergency sanitary situations, such as MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières - Doctors Without Borders), firefighters, paramedics, etc. Those organizations need to have amazing doctors and logisticians working for them, and very well-prepared. This is why SENTRA will help them train these professionals faster, with a lighter emotional charge regarding the high-stress mission, and enhance their performance on the field. What we want to train is instinct and situational response to foreign events.


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Team Margulis - Power Index (Knowledge Sharing in Academic Research)

We believe the key to enabling future innovation is to create more credible signals of a researcher’s performance. A researcher impacts science in many dimensions. It could be the knowledge they create in the form of journal articles, raw data, code, and software. It could be a discussion they create in conferences or national policy. It could even be inspiring an 8-year-old to study science.

It is impossible for someone to consume all of this knowledge. Thus, the research community relies on journals to filter the information. However, journals only recognize written articles. If we can give researchers credit for all of the aspects of their impact, then the researchers won’t be tied to only creating journal articles. We can also update our metric to include new innovations.

To make an analogy, journals are currently like a radio. Radios capture sound and transmit it to anyone that wants to listen. The listeners get valuable information but in the end, it is only sound. We want our product to be the television. We don’t only want to transmit the sound, we want to transmit a visual picture with full color that gives the audience a more complete picture of what is happening.

The core of our product are the three scores for our three pillars: Impacting Society, Advancing Science, and Promoting Openness. The scores will be presented in a report that can be accessed by website or app for tablet or phone.


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Team Geiger - Säker (Radon awareness)

How might we reduce the number of lives lost to the "silent killer" Radon?

Our proposal is a platform that combines information from a network of radon detectors and personal risk assessment to offer a personalized care and mitigation services.

There are 3 components to the Säker solution, each offering their own benefits to the user and other stakeholders.

1. Radon monitoring based on location and network of sensors.

2. Radon sensitivity analysis based on your personal
  
(a) demographic characteristics (gender and age),
  
(b) lifestyle choices (smoking, clean house etc.) and
  
(c) genetics (family history or DNA test).

3. Information exchange with other external stakeholders.


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Team Carson - Air & Windo (Public health and environment)

Team Carson’s challenge was to think about how can we contribute to the reduction of environmental exposures that affect people’s health? Using this launching pad, Team Carson investigated the main causes of death and disease-affected-life-years (DALYs) according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and concentrated the initial research on water safety, neo-natal care, outdoor air pollution and urban mobility.

Ultimately, efforts were focussed on solving the problems associated with spending too much time indoors, namely the higher concentrations of air pollutants and the lack of sunlight, along with its associated benefits. Team Carson then reformulated the challenge to, How can we bring the benefits of the outdoors, indoors?

To answer this question, we reimagined what is possible through AiR, Augmented Immersive Reality. A portable, mixed reality and air purification device, AiR projects the location of your choice around you, immersing you in the sights, sounds and smells of the chosen location.

Unfortunately, the technology to achieve this effect is currently beyond our capabilities in the portable design desired. But we are able to create the first step towards that future vision, through WINDO. Instead of surrounding the user in an environment, it is recreated in two dimensions by an artificial window.

WINDO allows the user to choose their view, transporting themselves to the sights and sounds of some faraway beach or forest. All while WINDO cleans the air with mechanical and organic systems, and provides a Vitamin D dose using UVB lighting


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Team Watt - Symmetra (AR in maintenance work)

Our solution, Symmetra, uses augmented reality to enable maintenance service professionals to handle their machinery in an interactive, user-friendly way. It adds information in layers of computer-generated content over real-life objects, enhancing the user experience and perception of reality. These layers build up the real world that responds dynamically to its changes. Our main objective was to empower the machine users by offering them a tool that provides step-by-step guidance while they perform maintenance activities. It is important to note that these professionals will have to rely on their hands to actually carry out the work. Consequently, we must offer them a hands-free gadget. Our proposal is to use an augmented reality headset, such as Hololens from Microsoft.

Our proposal design is based on a user-friendly interface that eases the complex task of understanding how the machinery work and a really practical user experience so as to speed up the process of learning how to use the system.


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Team Nash - DALI (Learning environment of the future?)

The classrooms and education haven’t changed in years. If you look at images and methodologies 70 years apart you will notice there is no difference. After our research we have identified the following 3 major issues: pace, standardization and purpose, all of those issues led to the bigger issue of “ How do we sustain the intrinsic motivation in children?”.

What is more, in order to have a more clear vision for our proposals we set certain boundaries. We are tackling the issue for children between the age of 8 - 12 years old in Europe. And to have a better perception of the timeline of our project, we set the date that defines our classroom of the future as 2030. However, the only thing that was left was to define what is a “classroom”.

We have decided to not only look at it as a physical space, but to have the whole holistic view of it. For Team Nash a classroom is not only what surrounds the students, but what are the students learning, how is the content being delivered to them and how do they interact with all the key players in the schooling system.

DALI (Digital Assistant for Learning Intelligence) is an educational application designed for schools, to increase students’ motivation towards learning.

DALI will provide multiple methodologies to explain and test different topics, so that each student can learn the way it suits her or him best. Learning will now be something fun thanks to DALI´s gamified experience. Students will make progress by going on multiple adventures of knowledge exploration. DALI will collect, organize, analyze and interpret all the information generated by each student´s learning process. Teachers will use this information to provide a more needs-based educational experience for their students, whereas school administrators will gain access to a relevant and manageable database for decision-making purposes. D.A.L.I has two interfaces one for the students and one for the teacher.


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Team Hawking - lasi (therapy and motivation)

How might we improve the cognitive development and communication skills, and consequently the quality of life, of people with Intellectual & Developmental Disability through Information Communication Technology?

Our product, called LASI, is a customizable device, tailor-made for people with intellectual disabilities. LASI is used by an individual with mental disability undergoing speech therapy to practice personalized speech exercises created by his own therapist. Through speech recognition, LASI analyzes if the user performs the exercise correctly and the system provides physical feedback in the form of lights, vibrations, images or smooth surfaces. Otherwise a facial reconstruction of the user demonstrates the correct movement for guided references. LASI implements gamification and physical interactions to keep users motivated and tries to achieve faster and effective speech improvement.


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