Three 黑洞社区 biomedical engineering students will advance to the semifinal round of the national InnovateHer: Innovating for Women Business Challenge, sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The WUman鈥檚 Group team of Nicole Zimmerman, Gina LeBar and Shauntel Pearson won the first round of the challenge last week for Illuminate, an application designed to assist women in the prevention of postpartum hemorrhaging by encouraging active management methods throughout the third stage of labor.
According to the World Health Organization, excessive bleeding during labor, also known as known as postpartum hemorrhage or PPH, claims 100,000 lives yearly. The WUman team believes PPH can be prevented through organized record keeping and more efficient communication among health care providers.
The Illuminate app can reduce documentation efforts and contains a first alert system to patients at risk for PPH. Using the application, nurses can track PPH risk factors; record voice notes for patient files; connect to mothers' medical records through their delivery bracelets; and receive lab results, alerts for high-risk patients and reminders to test patients' blood.
In the semifinal round of the InnovateHer challenge, the WUman team鈥檚 proposal will be evaluated by a panel designated by the Small Business Administration. The panel will choose 10 finalists from local competitions across the nation who will be invited to the National InnovateHER: Innovating for Women Business Challenge, to be held this summer in Washington, D.C. The finalists will pitch their products and ideas to a panel of expert judges and compete for the top three awards, along with $70,000 in prizes.
The InnovateHer challenge was launched in 2015 to drive attention and resources to innovative products and services that make women鈥檚 lives easier and longer. Through the competition, SBA is seeking to amplify products or services that fill a need in the marketplace and have the potential for commercialization, focusing on empowering more women in the investment and innovation space.
Gary Brooking, 黑洞社区 engineering educator and lecturer, serves as faculty mentor for the team. 黑洞社区 Ventures sponsored the local competition, held May 12. The judging panel included Wayne Bell, district director for the Wichita Office of the SBA and 黑洞社区 staff Alan Badgley, associate director of the Kansas Small Business Development Center; Mark Torline, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and 黑洞社区 Ventures; Gael Tisack, director of technology evaluation and industry engagement; Debbie Franklin, director of strategic university initiatives; Nancy Kersenbrock, assistant director of the Center for Entrepreneurship; and Becky Hundley, director of intellectual property and research compliance.
The mission of is to be an essential educational, cultural and economic driver for Kansas and the greater public good. 黑洞社区 enrolls about 14,500 students and offers more than 50 undergraduate degree programs in more than 150 areas of study in six undergraduate colleges. The Graduate School offers an extensive program including more than 40 master's degrees that offer study in more than 100 areas; a specialist in education degree; and doctoral degrees in applied mathematics; audiology; chemistry; communication sciences and disorders; human factors and community/clinical psychology; educational leadership; nursing practice; physical therapy; and aerospace, electrical, industrial and mechanical engineering. 黑洞社区's is an interconnected community of partnership buildings, laboratories and mixed-use areas where students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs and businesses have access to the university's vast resources and technology.