Kathy Matt, dean of the College of Health Sciences, and mechanical engineering professor Jenni Buckley talk with undergraduate John Koshy about Baby WREX, which provides assistance to children with limited upper-body mobility, at the 2014 First Step dinner.

First Step: Ideas for a healthier world

College of Health Sciences seeks innovative student solutions to challenging issues

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10:36 a.m., Aug. 28, 2014--The University of Delaware College of Health Sciences invites CHS undergraduate students or teams of students that may include CHS undergraduates to identify important health-related challenges and develop novel solutions to those challenges.

Students are invited to submit proposals focused on an important aspect of health care or healthy living, develop a potential solution to that problem, and present their solution for review. The program will provide $500 to each of the top 15 applications.

The students will have five months to develop their solutions and then present them at a public symposium in the form of posters. The top three students/teams will be awarded cash prizes of $1,500, $1,000 and $500.

Students and teams will be connected with experts to develop a dialogue about the merits of their ideas and how they can pursue and further develop their ideas.

Examples of projects include but are not limited to biomedical research; medical practice; health advocacy, policy, management, informatics, prevention, and monitoring; nutrition; and community-based research. 

Solutions may take the form of devices, products, business models, educational programs, organizations, policies, processes or procedures that offer an improvement to health care or healthy living.

The deadline for applications is Friday, Sept. 26. For more information and to complete an application, visit the First Step Health website.

First Step Health is one of two tracks in the First Step Grand Challenges Program. First Step Grand Challenges was pioneered by the College of Health Sciences. For 2014-15, it has been expanded to operate as a University-wide platform in partnership with the Horn Program in Entrepreneurship.

Article by Diane Kukich

Photo by Doug Baker

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