Healthcare quality has improved as a result of the development of new technologies, treatments and disease understanding. However, these developments come with increasing costs and resource demands that many healthcare systems struggle to manage. This leads to limited access to such advancements and the creation of socioeconomic, geographic and demographic barriers. 

Most deadly diseases can be treated and cured if detected early enough. Early-stage detection and interventions are typically low-cost and have minimal impact on the patient´s life quality. Unfortunately, many people realise their condition too late.

Two Swedish startups – Neko Health AB and Sund Medical Decisions AB- are working with Linköping University to develop new clinical screening and health monitoring technologies. Their goal is the identification of risky individual behaviours and early-stage detection of diseases, enabling low cost and impact interventions. Sceptics believe that preventative care would merely shift increasing healthcare costs from sick to healthy individuals. Neko and Sund want to address these concerns by employing novel, low-cost and widely accessible technologies. 

Smartphones are now everywhere and offer unique opportunities for innovation. Equipped with cameras, microphones, speakers, LEDs and other sensors, they have the potential to be the base components for medical devices. This has sparked an explosion of research efforts in the “low-resource settings” arena, where the goal is to create healthcare tools that are available to everyone, regardless location or income.

Your challenge

In this challenge you will be tasked to develop a smartphone-based medical screening/monitoring tool using optical technologies. You will create an accessible, low-cost prototype for home or remote use that helps individuals understand and manage their health. The performance limitations of such devices will also have to be taken into account, when developing your solution.

By bringing together an international and interdisciplinary group of students, this challenge looks to integrate the diverse perspectives necessary to address global health inequalities. Students from all backgrounds will work together to ensure that the solutions are inclusive, culturally sensitive and technically robust, maximising real-world impact.