Elliot Smith, an electrical engineering graduate from the University of Queensland has been awarded the 2014 Hills Young Innovator of the Year iAward for Pepster – a breathing exercise app and device for cystic fibrosis patients that can be used in the home.
Image credit: www.hills.iawards.com.au
The Hills Young Innovator Award recognises the most outstanding innovations from an individual 25 years or younger in three categories; Mobile, Big Data and Cloud.
According to the media release by Hills, Mr Smith will get $15,000 to develop and bring the app and device to market.
“We received over 30 applications spanning mobile, big data and cloud which is an impressive result for the first year of the award. These young people have applied technology in clever ways to solve common problems. Their ideas and innovations are an incredibly promising sign of what’s to come for our sector,” said Hills Chief Technology Officer, Leica Ison.
“Pepster really stood out as a clever medical innovation with strong commercial prospects. We’re delighted that this financial support will take Pepster closer to commercialisation and help improve quality of life for people living with respiratory conditions like cystic fibrosis.”
Pepster uses a breathing device and smartphone and tablet apps to monitor respiratory physiotherapy in patients suffering breathing and lung conditions. It links breathing activity to actions in a computer game, encouraging children to achieve their respiratory exercise goals and ensuring they’re breathing correctly and effectively.
Pepster is currently being tested at Mater Children’s Hospital and will be seeking TGA and FDA approval in the next 12–24 months.
The other 2014 Hills Young Innovator of the Year category winners are:
Cloud – Alex Sharp for Orion VM, a wholesale Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider.
“Their revolutionary technology suite (virtual storage, compute, orchestration and virtual networking) enables the delivery of high-performing, highly reliable cloud solutions at market-leading price-to-performance ratios. The OrionVM Wholesale Cloud Platform supports private, public, and hybrid cloud deployments and is built either for internal consumption or resale,” it says in the media release by Hills.
Big data – Chris Eigeland for GoCatalyze, a platform which enables organisations to track and understand internal interactions, the direction of information and work flow and helps identify key influencers within an organisation. GoCatalyze can be applied in SMEs, financial services and the charity sector.
For more information about the Hills Young Innovator of the Year Awards, please go to http://www.hills.iawards.com.au/
