Bear Institute Pediatric Accelerator Challenge for Kids winners announced

In December 2022, the Bear Institute, along with Children’s National Hospital and Oracle Health, hosted the second annual Bear Institute PACK (Pediatric Accelerator Challenge for Kids), a start-up competition aimed to foster pediatric digital health innovation.

Bear Institute PACK is inclusive of the entire pediatric health care community and addresses the large disparity in digital health innovation funding dedicated to children versus the rest of the population. “We have to do more for children, a population that can’t advocate for itself,” says Matt Macvey, M.B.A., MS, executive vice president and chief information officer at Children’s National Hospital. “Bear Institute PACK is an all-hands effort to provide increased support to those start-ups trying to bring new solutions to market for kids.”

Start-ups share their innovations and receive valuable feedback from expert judges while competing for a chance to win an on-site pilot and software development support. The competition features three rounds of judging: an initial review of applications from the Bear Institute PACK team, judging from participating pediatric healthcare providers and administrators and review from an expert panel of judges during finalist start-ups’ live pitches. This year’s start-up participants competed across four innovation tracks in the following areas of development: Early-Stage Innovation, Concept Validation, Early Commercialization and Growth Trajectory.

This 2022 winners, in four innovation tracks, are:

• Early-Stage Innovation (“Even the biggest ideas start small”) Winner: PigPug Health
  Its solution uses neurofeedback, a non-invasive approach to treating brain-related conditions, and artificial intelligence to help children with ADHD and autism become more socialized.

• Concept Validation (“Now it’s time to test it”) Winner: Global Continence, Inc.
  Its Soluu™, Bedwetting Mitigation Device, helps rapidly and permanently mitigate bedwetting with a neuromodulation process.

• Early Commercialization (“Countdown to launch”) Winner: PyrAmes Inc.
  Its solution Boppli™ provides continuous, non-invasive blood pressure monitoring and streams data via Bluetooth to a mobile device.
• Growth Trajectory (“The investment is growing”) Winner: maro
  Its full stack child development kit equips a child’s caretakers (at home, school and clinic) with easy access to tools and data needed to help them navigate tough conversations including mental health, diversity, empathy, and puberty and helps identify mental health at-risk students in schools.

“I was very impressed with this year’s start-up participants and their caliber of talent and passion for what they do. The finalist judges were tasked with selecting one winner in each innovation track, but the work each participant is doing for kids makes them all winners,” says Rebecca Laborde, Ph.D., chief scientist, vice president of Health Innovation and Scientific Advisory, Oracle Health. “Thank you to the entire pediatric healthcare community that comes together to help make this event a success. We believe that by bringing together like-minded individuals with the same goals, we can make a real difference in pediatric healthcare.”