DiabetesMine, a leading informational and community web site for people with diabetes, announces the 2nd Annual DiabetesMine Design Challenge, a competition designed to foster innovation in diabetes design and encourage creative new tools that will improve life with diabetes.
This web-based competition is co-hosted at DiabetesMine.com and MedGadget.com, the Internet journal of emerging medical technologies, and supported by the world-renowned design and innovation firm IDEO, with headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. The campaign is generously sponsored by Cory and Justin Oringer, two young brothers (ages 14 and 11, respectively) who have both been living with Type 1 diabetes for more than 10 years each and have already seen and personally experienced many wonderful benefits of design innovation in diabetes technology.
Submissions are being accepted in two categories: under age 18, and over 18. The package of prizes offered to help further the winners' creative efforts includes $ 3,200 in cash, a two-hour workshop by IDEO design consultants specializing in health and wellness to help the winners refine their concepts, and free access to the next "innovation incubator" Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco in October 21-23, 2008, for one adult winner.
"People with diabetes are so varied. There's the 8-year-old kid going to school every day, versus the older gentleman who may be retired and barely gets out of his house. Consumer design takes that variability into account, but traditionally medical design does not. What people with diabetes really need and want are choices," says Cynthia Rice, head of new technology at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). "We applaud what DiabetesMine is doing, because it sheds light on this need."
Last year, creator of DiabetesMine Amy Tenderich posted an Open Letter to Steve Jobs, calling for the gurus of consumer design to help revolutionize design of diabetes devices. In the weeks and months that followed, numerous individuals and organizations came forward with compelling new prototypes, designs, and ideas. These included new concepts for glucose meters, insulin pumps, lancing devices (for testing blood glucose), devices for transporting medical records or tracking glucose results, diabetes supply carry cases and more.
This year, the official competition is open to anyone passionate about diabetes and product design. "Whether you're a pharma R&D pro, an independent engineer, a design student or an enterprising patient, we want to hear from you," Tenderich says. "Remember, good design can be applied to anything, even something as 'low-tech' as a special container for disposing of used glucose test strips. Let the innovation begin!"
Submissions are accepted in the form of a 2-minute video to be uploaded to the DiabetesMine YouTube channel, or a 2-3 page written "elevator pitch" plus supporting graphics. The deadline for submissions has been extended to midnight PST on Monday, June 16, 2008. Winners will be announced on Friday, June 20, 2008.
The official contest announcement and rules can be found at http://www.diabetesmine.com/2008/04/2nd-annual-diab.html.
For more information, please contact:
B. Tenderich at DiabetesMine.com
650-652-9430
info @ diabetesmine.com
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