The 2021 Lyfebulb and Loyola University Chicago Innovation Challenge: Meeting Our Moment – Reimagining Innovation, Improving Health Equity, and Building Resiliency will source innovative solutions, technologies, methodologies, and services that address the effects of emerging infectious diseases (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) by improving population and public health, health care delivery, and/or health equity.
The Innovation Challenge is open to applicants from different industries and disciplines. Innovators from underserved communities are encouraged to apply. Solutions may include, but are not limited to, digital technologies, devices, consumer products and solutions, and community programs and services.
The Innovation Challenge will be held during a virtual summit on November 16-17, 2021. Applications are open; the deadline to submit entries is September 10, 2021. Selected finalists will receive an invitation to pitch their innovations to an expert panel of judges consisting of public health experts, community advocates, and healthcare industry leaders. A total of $75,000 will be distributed among no more than three finalists to advance the development of their innovation. The 2021 Innovation Challenge is funded by the generous endowment from Bob and Betty Parkinson, which created Loyola University Chicago’s Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health.
In addition to presenting their social ventures and innovative concepts, finalists will have the opportunity to exchange ideas on how to advance innovation in the areas of population and public health, health care delivery, and health equity, and to engage with Lyfebulb founders, Parkinson School leadership, key opinion leaders, and potential partners and investors.
Through a call-to-action and an invitation to “meet our moment,” the 2021 Innovation Challenge seeks innovative ideas and solutions to address the effects of emerging infectious diseases through advancements in the areas of population and public health, health care delivery, and health equity.
The problem: Over the past several decades, emerging infectious diseases have increased in frequency annually both in the United States and globally. The COVID-19 pandemic is just one example of their devastating impacts on already overburdened health care systems and on the health and well-being of communities across the country and around the world.
The opportunity: COVID-19 and the shortcomings of the U.S. response highlighted the need for more forward-thinking, interdisciplinary, and creative strategies that build resiliency and improve preparedness to better manage pandemics and public health threats. In particular, the pandemic magnified existing social, economic, and racial inequalities and exposed the profound inequities at all levels of the U.S. health system. This Innovation Challenge will help identify barriers to care access, work to understand the underlying causes of health disparities, and advance health equity for all.
We’re reimagining innovation: In response to these challenges and with our vision that multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary cooperation is essential to address them, the Parkinson School, in partnership with Lyfebulb, seeks to reimagine innovation in the population and public health, health care delivery, and health equity space.
Lyfebulb and the Parkinson School seek a wide range of solutions that will improve population and public health, health care delivery, and/or health equity in response to emerging infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Applying organizations must be registered in the United States.
Submissions will be evaluated by a panel of subject matter experts selected by Lyfebulb and the Parkinson School.
The judging panel will assess the following:
Applications open on Monday, August 2, 2021
Applications close on Friday, September 10, 2021, at 11:59 PM EDT
The virtual 2021 Innovation Challenge will take place November 16-17, 2021
A total of $75,000 will be distributed among no more than three finalists
The Innovation Challenge is one component of a larger partnership between Lyfebulb and Loyola University Chicago’s Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health built upon a shared commitment to advancing health equity and improving health outcomes for individuals, populations, and systems. The inaugural 2021 Innovation Challenge seeks to strengthen and engage entrepreneurs from healthcare, technology, and other industries as well as the Lyfebulb and Loyola communities. Additionally, the 2021 Innovation Challenge will generate awareness around the effects of emerging infectious diseases and identify promising solutions that reduce health disparities and improve health care delivery for all.
Lyfebulb is an innovation accelerator that bridges the gap between patient communities and the healthcare industry by working directly with patients and care partners to generate insights and build new solutions to reduce the burden of living with chronic disease. Lyfebulb operates across 11 disease states and counting.
Loyola University Chicago launched the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health in Fall 2019 to educate the health entrepreneurs of the future and make a national impact on health care accessibility and equity. The Parkinson School offers 17 degree programs and three certificate and internship programs through four areas of study: Public Health Sciences, Healthcare Administration, Health Informatics and Data Science, and Applied Health Sciences. In Fall 2021, it will launch a new 4+1 BSPH/MPH dual-degree program. The Parkinson School builds on the foundations of Loyola’s nationally recognized Stritch School of Medicine and its Biomedical Programs, Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing, and Loyola’s partnership with Trinity Health (known in the Chicago area as Loyola Medicine).