41 States Sue Meta Over Instagram’s Harm to Young Users
24/10/2023
Amazon Eero Max 7: The Fastest and Most Powerful Eero Mesh Wi-Fi Yet
26/10/2023EIT Health Wild Card: Irish Startups Haon and Myndgard Among the Finalists
(Image credit: EIT Health)
EIT Health Wild Card, an innovative program, issues a challenge to entrepreneurs and visionaries, urging them to confront Europe's most critical health dilemmas. Each year, the program spotlights two thematic focal points, beckoning teams and individuals to submit their groundbreaking concepts and remedies. The chosen finalists embark on a rigorous odyssey of training and validation, with the promise of garnering up to €750,000 in vital funding and support from EIT Health and its esteemed partners.
In 2023, the program's spotlight illuminates children's health, prioritizing innovations targeting early-life hurdles, chronic ailments and rare diseases. EIT Health underscores the significance of investing in children's health as pivotal to constructing a brighter tomorrow. Unfortunately, children often grapple with suboptimal healthcare solutions when compared to their adult counterparts.
Within this year's cohort of visionaries, two Irish startups rise to prominence: Haon Life Sciences and Myndgard. Both entities have harnessed pioneering solutions with the ambition of enhancing the lives of children and their cherished families.
Situated in Dublin, Haon Life Sciences has engineered an avant-garde cell therapy platform. This platform harbors the potential to combat pediatric and adult diseases characterized by substantial unmet needs. The flagship contender centers on an intranasal treatment tailored for neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), a condition predominantly affecting newborns and ranking among the foremost causes of neonatal mortality globally. Haon’s innovative approach deploys stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood to convey neuroprotective agents to the brain, thereby mitigating inflammation and catalyzing regeneration.
A spin-out of Trinity College Dublin, Myndgard, spearheaded by Dr. Sean Kelley, Dr. Edel Crehan, and Pat Flynn since 2021, concentrates on youth mental health. Myndgard is at the vanguard of developing a smartphone application leveraging artificial intelligence and passive data to evaluate users' well-being and offer personalized feedback and support. The application serves both individual users and synergizes seamlessly with therapists, affording them access to the user's data and enabling customized therapeutic interventions.
Both Haon and Myndgard have secured their places in the pinnacle event of the EIT Health Wild Card program, slated to unfold in Warsaw on the 27th of October. Here, they will unfurl their business propositions before a distinguished panel of pediatric luminaries and astute investors. It is this assembly that will decree which two teams shall reap the fruits of investment and support from EIT Health.
For these trailblazing Irish startups, the EIT Health Wild Card program stands as a unique platform to showcase their innovations, receiving invaluable feedback and astute guidance from experts steeped in the realm of children’s health. By confronting some of the most formidable challenges in this sphere, they hold the potential to usher in a positive transformation in the lives of millions of children and their families, not only across Europe but well beyond.
