MD+DI Invites You To 2nd Dare-to-Dream Medtech Design Challenge

Last year, as an experiment, MD+DI editors launched a medtech design challenge to encourage innovation among our readers.

The concept was simple: If financing wasn't an issue, regulatory hurdles were absent and reimbursement guaranteed, what dream medical device would you design?

The response was so positive, we decided to make it an annual contest. 

Today, we are launching our second Dare-to-Dream Medtech Design Challenge. We want to encourage people inside the medtech industry and others looking to disrupt it to submit their ideas. The grand prize winner gets $500, while the first and second runners-up will receive $250 and $100 respectively.

We've made a few important changes. This time around you have to answer four questions with a total word count of no more than 400 words describing the details of your submission. We are also requesting a good-quality rendering or image of the device your are designing submitted via e-mail. 

But perhaps the most important change is the addition of a formal six-member panel of judges. They will score 10 finalists chosen by MD+DI editors based on three criteria: 

Here are our judges in alphabetical order:

Dr. Samir Damani
Damani is a cardiologist at Scripps, a private, nonprofit, integrated health system in San Diego. He is also a physician-entrepreneur and founder and CEO of MD Revolution, a digital health company. Damani, who has directed numerous studies in digital health, also recently led a National Institutes of Health–sponsored study on biomarkers of heart attacks. 

Bill Evans
Evans is founder and president of product design firm Bridge Design in San Francisco, which for more than 20 years has helped design products for the medical and life science industries. Evans is also a member of MD+DI's editorial advisory board.

Emily Gilles
Gilles is technology development manager at Mayo Clinic Ventures in Rochester, MN. In this role she identifies, develops, and facilitates the commercialization of technologies from Mayo's cardiovascular division and the department of surgery for commercialization opportunities. 

Wende Hutton
Hutton is a general partner at Canaan Partners, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, CA. She has facilitated bringing more than a dozen medical devices and drugs to market. She sits on the board of several firms, including ReVision Optics, Butterfly Health, and Transcend Medical.

Dr. Paul Iaizzo
Iaizzo is a professor in the departments of surgery, integrative biology, and physiology, and the Carlson School of Management, and is on the graduate faculties in biomedical engineering, neuroscience, integrative biology and physiology, biological science, and mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota. He is in Minneapolis. Additionally, Iaizzo serves as the director for education of the Lillehei Heart Institute and associate director for the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, also at the University of Minnesota.

V. Kadir Kadhiresan
Kadhiresan is principal in venture investments at Johnson & Johnson Development Corp. and is based in Boston. His interests are mainly in medical devices and diagnostics. Previously, he was director of business development at Guidant, which was later acquired by Boston Scientific. 

Here are the official rules of the competition which highlight entrance criteria. Please ignore dates related to any announcement of winners and finalists since we are extending the contest deadline. 

To enter, please go here. The contest deadline has been extended to midnight PST on Friday, October 17, 2014.

Please email renderings or images here with the subject line DTD 2014. No submissions will be accepted without images or renderings.

Good luck to all, and may the best dreamer win.

-- By Arundhati Parmar, Senior Editor, MD+DI
[email protected]