Massachusetts Team Wins the 2014 ASME Innovation Showcase

Massachusetts Team Wins the 2014 ASME Innovation Showcase Massachusetts Team Wins the 2014 ASME Innovation Showcase Massachusetts Team Wins the 2014 ASME Innovation ShowcaseASME President Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb (center) presents the $25,000 first prize to the team from the University of Massachusetts Lowell at the 2014 ASME Innovation Showcase (IShow) in Washington, D.C. A low-cost, mass-producible prosthetic limb that was developed by a team of students from the University of Massachusetts Lowell received the top prize at the ASME Innovation Showcase (IShow) belastung month. UMass Lowell was one of 9 teams taking part in the competition, which was held April 28 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.Now in its eighth year, the annual event, which is sponsored by the ASME Foundation, provides teams of graduate and undergraduate students with the chance to present products they have developed to a panel of judges consisting of successful innovators, industry experts, tech start-up l eaders, and intellectual property specialists. The judges then select the most innovative and practical ideas, awarding the top three winners $50,000 in seed funds as well as industry recognition. A section of the adaptable prosthetic limb designed by the UMass Lowell team. The students from UMass Lowell - Jonathan Perez de Alderete, Erin Keaney, Brendan Donoghue, Catherine Caine, Tucker Holladay and Olivia Keane- were awarded the IShows $25,000 top prize for inventing an affordable prosthetic limb for use in developing countries. The team, named Nonspec, designed the limb so that it could quickly adjust to meet the needs of each patient. For instance, in pediatric patients, the limb can mechanically grow as the child ages, so the child would require fewer replacement devices as he or she matures. The $15,000 second place prize went to the team from Rice University, Team BiliQant, for its two-component approach to determine bilirubin concentration that employs optics and microfluidics to inexpensively and accurately diagnose cases of jaundice. Team members Jacinta Leyden, Monica Barrera, Rohan Shan, Melody Tan and Stephanie Tzouanas designed a paper-based cuvette for plasma isolation from whole blood samples as well as a spectrophotometric device to read the absorbance of bilirubin within the acquired plasma. Their approach avoids the use of lab equipment and reagents that make implementation difficult in developing nations, resulting in test that costs less than once cent to administer. Larry Martin of the University of Hawaii presents his product SmartTummy to the panel of judges at the 2014 IShow. He went on to win the competitions $10,000 third-place prize. Larry Martin of the University of Hawaii claimed the IShows $10,000 third prize with his entry SmartTummy, a unique abdominal training mannequin that can promptly mimic the look, sound, and feel of a variety of abdominal ailments using its proprietary technology and a user-friendly computer interface. The device is intended to help train healthcare students in abdominal palpation exams. A fourth team, from Johns Hopkins University, won the Dr. Abdi Zaltash Champion Award for its entry Accuspine, which is a low-cost, smart pedicle probe for the accurate placement of pedicle screws in spinal fusion surgeries. This special $1,000 award was established to recognize a new technology or concept that is not ready for market, but shows promise and deserves further recognition and development. The judges for this years IShow were Evan Burfield, co-founder of the incubator platform 1776 Jen Consalvo, chief operating officer and co-founder of new media and events company Tech Cocktail ASME Fellow Lynden F. Davis, vice-chair of the ASME Foundation Steve Davis, director of advanced projects at Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Paul Scott, Senior Program Manager, Engineering for in aller welt Development, ASME. The event was hosted by Julie Kantor, chief partnership officer at STEMconnector. For more information on the ASME Innovation Showcase, visit www.asme.org/events/competitions/asme-ishow.