Innovation stories
Q&A with Innovation Council member Villgro Africa
Innovation Council sat down with Wilfred Njagi, Co-Founder and CEO of Villgro Africa to learn more about the success story and lessons learned. The healthcare business incubator has a demonstrated track record having incubated over 30 healthcare innovators in East Africa that have gone on to increase access to affordable, superior quality healthcare in E. Africa touching over 2 million lives in the last 5 years.
Q&A with Innovation Council member Medixus
Innovation Council sat down with Nicole Kayode, Founder and CEO of Medixus to talk about her passion for health and social impact tech. She created a communication, collaboration and learning platform for doctors aimed at improving case management and clinical practice. Medixus believes that quality patient care relies on smooth communication between healthcare professionals, and access to resources that will further their development.
Gender and Racial Diversity in Invention and Patenting: Lessons from Women’s Experiences
Joined by Invent Together and women inventors, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) will present new research on the challenges women inventors face based on gender and race and how to overcome them.
The event takes place on 20 July, 2pm ET.
2021 Innovators Under 35
In the “35 Innovators Under 35” competition, the MIT Technology Review nominates more than 500 people every year and will showcase these global winners in their July/August issue and online. From this group, the Technology Review’s editors select the most promising 100 competitors to advance to the semi-finalist round, and the work of these top 100 contestants is then evaluated by a panel of judges with expertise in areas such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, software, energy, and materials. Using the insights from these rankings, the editors select the final list of 35.
Read the full story and scroll through the list of inventors.
EPO announces winners of the European Inventor Award 2021
The European Patent Office’s European Inventor Award 2021, which took place on June 17th, celebrated outstanding inventors and inventor teams from Europe and beyond.
At the ceremony, the winners were announced for each of the five categories: Industry, Research, SMEs, Non-EPO countries, and Lifetime Achievement. These winners were selected by an independent, international jury. The public was also invited to vote for their favourite inventor from among the 15 finalists in the Popular Prize.
Trailblazing Women Engineers Inspire the Next Generation
In the United States, engineering remains one of the undergraduate majors with the smallest percentage of women. The percentage of women engineers in the workplace is even smaller. Inspire! is a collection of three educational videos, with an accompanying discussion guide, that will empower middle school and early high school girls to overcome obstacles facing girls and women in STEM fields, such as a lack of confidence and discouragement from others.
‘Landmark initiative’: Ramaphosa, Macron announce new SA-based Covid-19 vaccine hub
President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that France would invest in boosting the production of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa, in order to help close the gap in vaccine availability between African and Western nations. South African Innovation Council member Biovac, which has a partnership with France, has partnered with African Biologics and Vaccines (a network of universities) and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to establish Africa’s first Covid messenger RNA vaccine technology transfer hub.
After a gene from algae was added to his eye, a blind man can perceive objects
Botond Roska, professor at the University of Basel, led the research for a gene therapy to add light-sensing molecules to a patient’s retina, which has improved the patient’s sight significantly. In the journal Nature Medicine, the authors describe how their patient lost his vision after being diagnosed 40 years ago with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease that destroys photoreceptors (the light-sensing cells in the retina). The doctors employed gene therapy to add a light-sensing molecule to one of the man’s eyes. The gene they added, called chrimson, comes from a single-celled algae species that is able to sense sunlight and move toward it. The idea behind adding the gene, says Roska, is to engineer retina cells called ganglions so that they become able to respond to light, sending visual signals to the brain.
25 inspiring stories of Latin American women
Given the importance of science and technology for advancing the SDGs – but against a backdrop of declining interest in scientific careers among youth, and a persistent gender gap in the STEM field – 3M has published the stories of 25 successful women in science in Latin America. The stories, curated from more than 1000 applications, are inspiring individual tales. They also highlight the broader positive impact these women have had on their societies. Kudos to 3M for shining a spotlight on the achievements of these impressive scientists.