CHECKR TEAM WINS UNIVERSITAS 21 MOST INNNOVATIVE RISE AWARD

STUDENT IN FOCUS

After two top prizes in the KU Leuven KICK Challenge 2020, Nikte Van Landeghem’s team continues to pile up the victories. Their record of achievements now includes the Most Innovative RISE Award of Universitas 21, a select network of 27 world-class universities whose students, researchers and staff are committed to sharing excellence, collaborating across borders and disciplines and nurturing international knowledge and exchange.

Nikte graduated in 2020 at Group T Leuven Campus with a master’s degree in Electromechanical Engineering Technology. Afterwards, she followed the postgraduate programme in Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering Technology. “During the KICK Challenge, I became fascinated with entrepreneurship and innovation”, Nikte says. “We developed and built an original CheckR kit. The next logical step was to take it to the market”.

What makes Nikte’s product unique, is the idea of involving pharmacists in the detection of potential high-risk patients. During their visit to the pharmacy, customers can test in a simple and fun way whether or not they are at risk of contracting conditions that could be avoided if they are detected in time. This is done using a kit consisting of a VR headset, a controller and a heart sensor to measure several cognitive, muscular and cardiovascular parameters such as heart rhythm, blood pressure, memory and vision as well as motoric skills. The game lasts barely five minutes, but it provides the pharmacists with sufficient information to determine whether there is a health risk and a referral to a doctor or hospital is necessary. “Both the customer and the pharmacist benefit from the test”, says Nikte. “The former prevents health problems and the latter can offer an extra service to the client”.

Nikte Van Landeghem and Salma Nachi

© Filip Van Loock

Final round

In April 2021, the CheckR project was selected by KU Leuven for the final round of the RISE 2021 Awards of Universitas 21, an international competition for student projects with a Real Impact on Society and Environment. The Leuven team had to compete against 55 projects, representing more than 200 students from 23 universities.

All projects were showcased on U21’s website and social media channels and shared with a network of experts in academia and industry. In addition, all the students involved had the opportunity to take part in a preparatory training programme whilst gaining exposure to U21’s international audience of supporters. Finalists competed in four categories to win USD 2,000 seed funding to further their projects, with awards given for Most Innovative, Most Collaborative, Most Impact and Most Potential.

Sustainable Development Goals

Nikte and her team mates look back with pride on their participation in the RISE 2020/21 Competition. “Being part of it has been very inspiring. We had the opportunity to follow three workshops to help further our project, but the most impactful experience was hearing about the other projects around the world. It was great to hear about the inspiring work that fellow students were doing to contribute in one way or another to the Sustainable Development Goals. Having the opportunity to connect with such international community of students all working together for social impact is an invaluable experience”.

Yves Persoons

www.universitas21.com/Rise-202021-showcase