WoSIH updates CivTech on menopause challenge
CivTech Demo Day 9 saw West of Scotland Innovation Hub staff show how technology is helping to transform women's experience of menopause.
The event, held at the Assembly Roxy in Edinburgh, saw teams from across Scotland’s public sector, gather to share the outputs of projects in Round 9 of the CivTech programme.
The West of Scotland Innovation Hub has been taking part in the following challenge: How can technology help empower women to better understand menopause and access the right support for their individual needs at the right time?
Throughout this process the term “women” has been used. However, it is inclusive of, and recognises, that people from different communities can also experience menopausal symptoms.
The West of Scotland Innovation Hub in partnership with the Chief Scientist Office has been supporting a team of clinicians from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Ayrshire & Arran to engage in Round 9 of the Scottish Government’s CivTech Programme which concluded on Wednesday.
Throughout the accelerator, the team, collectively known as the “Challenge Sponsors”, have worked with three innovative companies to co-design three solutions each addressing a different aspect of the challenge.
The clinicians involved - Dr Esther Aspinall and Dr Katrin Bjornsson from NHS Ayrshire & Arran, and Dr Jenifer Sassarini from NHS GGC - served as the project’s menopause subject matter experts and between them provided a public health, primary care, and secondary care perspective, while Craig Bell from the West of Scotland Innovation Hub and Suzanne Graham from the Chief Scientist Office provided support navigating the NHS and Scottish Government’s Innovation infrastructure.
The event, coordinated by the CivTech team gave all companies involved in the programme the opportunity to showcase their solutions to an audience of interested parties from the Public, Financial, and Tech sectors. Addresses were given by Mark Elliott, Programme Director at CivTech, and Geoff Huggins, Director of Digital at the Scottish Government, before the Challenge Sponsor team introduced the challenge background and welcomed each of the three partner companies to the stage to pitch.
Katriona Brooksbank, Innovation Lead for the West of Scotland who was in attendance at the event, said “Demo day was a brilliant opportunity to showcase the great prototypes developed during the accelerator phase of CivTech 9. This was the first healthcare challenge included in CivTech to identify ambitious and innovative partners to work with clinicians to co-develop solutions fit for women.”
For further information see:
Adora Digital Health: https://www.civtech.scot/demo-day-9-adora-digital-health
Cohesion Medical: https://www.civtech.scot/demo-day-9-cohesion-medical