International student competition: Siemens is seeking ideas on the future of healthcare

The contest focuses on the question of how technological progress and changes in society will affect today’s global healthcare systems. Students are being called on to address the topic in an abstract to be submitted by November 7, 2011.

Siemens will be inviting the authors of the ten best contributions to attend a three-month “Innovation Think Tank Camp” in Germany. Here they will have the opportunity to collaborate with Siemens experts on innovation projects. The results will then be appraised by a jury, which will award prizes for the best ideas.

How will healthcare systems develop over the next ten or twenty years? What implications will social changes have on the affordability of medical care? For students around the world who are tackling this and similar questions, Siemens Healthcare is mounting the competition “The Future of Healthcare“.

Eligible to enter are students in medicine, biomedical engineering and IT, as well as all other specialist disciplines. Entries will be accepted from individuals or teams of up to three people. The abstract should address the challenges facing the healthcare system, and put forward an innovative approach to solving such problems. The closing date for entries is November 7, 2011. The company will invite the authors of the ten best abstracts to attend an “Innovation Think Tank Camp”, which is set to take place from February to April 2012 at Siemens Healthcare's facilities in Germany. Siemens will refund travel and accommodation expenses.

Participants of the “Innovation Think Tank Camp” will also receive a monthly allowance. “During the Innovation Camp we will not only be giving the students the chance to establish contacts with senior management, researchers and developers from Siemens. First and foremost we will be offering them a creative environment within which they can contribute and realize their ideas, in a “real world”, interdisciplinary context,” said Cord Friedrich Stähler, Chief Technology Officer at Siemens Healthcare. The participants will work on innovative products and solutions on site and in project groups. Finally, they will present their results to a jury, which will assess them according to criteria such as strategic value, innovation value and level of technical realization, based on which they will award prize money totaling 15,000 euros.

Innovation Camp 2011: Around 200 applicants from 25 countries

The competition, arranged by Siemens Healthcare in Germany, is being run for the third time. The last contest attracted around two hundred applicants from 25 countries. From this total, 16 budding researchers from countries including Egypt, Singapore and Sweden were selected for the final round, and invited to Germany. In the “Innovation Think Tank Camp” in Erlangen and Kemnath they developed simulations, models and solutions for angiography systems, as well as magnetic resonance and computed tomography. One of the finalists was Kerim Kara from Turkey, who is now employed by Siemens in his homeland: “Taking part in the Innovation Camp helped me to garner experience in a multidisciplinary, and more than that, in a multicultural environment. Collaborating with experienced inventors in the imaging field enabled me to gain some interesting insights into product development and innovation management.”

You can find more information about the competition as well as contact data for submitting contributions at: www.siemens.com/innovationthinktank

The Siemens Healthcare Sector is one of the world’s largest healthcare solution providers and a leading manufacturer and service provider in the fields of medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics, hospital information technology and hearing instruments. It offers solutions covering the entire supply chain under one roof – from prevention and early detection to diagnosis and on to treatment and aftercare. By optimizing clinical workflows oriented toward the most important clinical pictures, Siemens also strives to make healthcare faster, better and, at the same time, less expensive. Siemens Healthcare currently has some 48,000 employees worldwide and is present throughout the world. During fiscal 2010 (up to September 30) the Sector posted sales worth 12.4 billion euros and profits of around 750 million euros.