Inspiring Minds .... And Some of the Finalists Are

UBTECH Robotics Inc.

Innovation: Smart Elderly Care Solution for Nursing Homes

Category/Subcategory: Engineering & Robotics / Medtech

Established in March 2012, UBTECH Robotics is a world leading AI and robotics company. UBTECH’s footprints span humanoid robot’s research, manufacture and marketing. UBTECH focuses on AI technology and robotic advanced development, application and commercialization.

The company has developed many key robotics-related technologies over the years. Based on these advanced technologies, UBTECH launched a series of service robots for commercial and personal/family use respectively.

The idea was originated in 2018 to create a personal robot for assisting senior people. We transformed the idea from creating a single robot to integrating different types of robots, smart devices, sensors, and AI, based on the market research and interviews with administrators and caregivers. Most of the people wanted robots and AI to help them

Amber Semiconductor, Inc.

Innovation: AmberSemi’s Silicon Chip at various life domains, which motivated the redesign of the robots and the design of the whole integrated solution. All robotic prototypes had the 2nd iteration based on the user feedback. The whole system was integrated with the software service platform and other smart devices in 2021 and validated at a real nursing home.

The whole solution provides assistance to the seniors in both physical and psychological ways. The seniors could be transported autonomously using PathFynder, assisted for walking and the physical rehabilitation using Wassi. They also get reminded of their agenda and could communicate naturally with Welli. The caregivers could send items, without walking, to people using OSDR and sensitive items using DR. All the robotic functions are automated coordinated and planned using the cloud service platform. This solution creates 24/7 service for nursing homes.

Category/Subcategory: Engineering & Robotics / Commercial Technology

Amber is a young Silicon Valley semiconductor company with technology breakthroughs in electricity. They found a way to control electricity through software – in silicon chips, replacing today’s standard 1950’s era electromechnical technologies, with safer, smaller, smarter (IoT, AI), more reliable and energy efficient silicon chips. It is a modernization of almost every product on earth that needs electricity, such as, circuit breakers, EV chargers, solar power systems, appliances, AC Direct Microcontrollers, AC Direct Wireless chips, light switches, motors smoke detectors, thermostats and so many more.

If Thomas Edison came back to life today, he would be THRILLED that our building electrical infrastructure was based on his legacy discoveries…. Until he saw an iPhone or a PC…. He would then be appalled that we use old tech - metal parts opening and closing with dangerous arcs to manage electricity. Amber’s technologies, instead, use modern software, in silicon chips, to manage electricity.

Proven solid-state architecture (silicon chips) are more reliable, safer and vastly more intelligent and established for more than 60 years. Yet, electricity in the building electrical grid and electrical products have never seen this innovation, until Amber’s discoveries.

Product Motif, Inc.

Innovation: Nose It All™

Qnergy

Innovation: Qnergy CAP3Nano

Category/Subcategory: Sustainability / Clean Energy

This innovation started with NASA asking how to generate electricity on the moon! The extreme temperatures and cold preclude conventional rotary engines that require lubricants and frequent maintenance. And of course, in space there is no oxygen for combustion. The answer is a linear heat engine.

The context that gives the innovation life is the urgent need to eliminate methane from venting into the atmosphere. Scientists now know that for the first 20 years that methane is allowed to escape into the atmosphere, that it has 84X the warming effect of CO2. Therefore every lost molecule of methane is not just a lost economic opportunity as a useful fuel, but it is extremely harmful to the environment.

Today, Qnergy’s PowerGen 5650, a 5.65 kW external combustion engine produced from the original design de-

MicroTransponder® Inc.

Innovation: Vivistim® Paired VNS™ System

Category/Subcategory: Health, Medical & Biotech / Advanced Therapeutics

MicroTransponder®, Inc. introduces the FDAapproved Vivistim® Paired VNS™ System to help ischemic stroke survivors improve their hand and arm function 2-3 times more than traditional rehabilitation therapy in just 6 weeks. Now available at comprehensive stroke centers and rehabilitation centers across the country, Vivistim simultaneously pairs vagus nerve stimulation with physical or occupational therapy to help create or strengthen neural connections to improve upper limb function and increase the relevance of rehabilitation therapy.

Neurorehabilitation experts tout the Vivistim® System as a gamechanger because it is

Category/Subcategory: Health, Medical & Biotech / Advanced Therapeutics

Nose It AllTM was created to be the first patented, medical-grade oral device designed to stop nosebleeds at the source.

By tourniqueting the arteries responsible, bypassing the nasal cavity completely and allowing users to breathe freely, we created a solution for stopping nosebleeds that works up to 5x faster than any traditional treatment.

Nosebleeds are a common occurrence for 60M people each year in the US alone, with 15% of cases being chronic. While most nosebleeds are not a medical emergency, they are wholly unpredictable – messy, embarrassing, leaving sufferers to search frantically for a way to stop them fast.

Matt Ibarra, creator of Nose It All, was a chronic nosebleed sufferer himself, and father to three chil- dren who all suffered chronic nosebleeds. On a summer camping trip in 2008 in the Sierra Nevadas, Matt’s 5-yearold approached him with a gusher of a nosebleed. Without wipes, tissues, or towels handy, a friend pulls out a napkin saying, “Let me try something I learned in the Boy Scouts,” and proceeded to roll a piece and place it under his son’s upper lip, pressing it upwards toward his nose. In minutes, the nosebleed stopped almost magically, while the boy breathed freely. All they had was that one napkin – and that’s all they needed.

Matt decided to design a device that would mimic and improve upon this technique that became Nose the first innovation to enhance the effectiveness of stroke rehabilitation therapy and improve motor function in nearly 30 years. Every year about 800,000 people in the US have a stroke, and 60 percent of stroke survivors have persistent upper limb issues for 6 months or more. Americans spend nearly $8.2B on home healthcare for stroke with an estimated $17.5B in lost wages yearly. After 13 years of research, innovation, pre-clinical trials and a pivotal trial, the FDA approved the first-ofits-kind Vivistim System to treat moderate to severe upper extremity motor deficits so that ischemic stroke survivors can regain their ability to perform activities of daily living. livered to NASA, can take any gaseous fuel and convert it into utility grade electricity and useful heat with no required scheduled maintenance for 80,000 continuous operating hours. Dubbed by NASA as “the longest running heat engine in the history of civilization,” the PowerGen provides reliable remote power anywhere we can access methane.

It All’s patented “bite tab,” providing a hands-free, plug-free solution that works in as little as three minutes to stop a nosebleed completely.

Now the other half of the innovation is combining the PowerGen with our constructed CAP3Nano. Qnergy designed the PowerGen CAP3Nano system to help energy clients eliminate methane emissions from offgrid natural gas wellpads.

Our results over hundreds of deployments show up to 20 tons of methane, 160 tons of CO2e abated each year per wellpad. Qnergy is helping the energy industry achieve net zero methane emissions for cleaner energy and a cleaner world.

Epicore Biosystems, Inc.

Innovation: Gx Sweat Patch

Category/Subcategory: Personal Technology (and Gadgets) / Smart Wearable

Our core technology was developed at Northwestern’s Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics. For decades, sports scientists and athletes have sought remote solutions to address the growing challenge of managing dehydration in athletes. Epicore Biosystems was incorporated in 2017 to tackle the personalized hydration management by developing a point of care wearable microfluidic device with onboard biosensors. We prototyped and gathered customer feedback with Gatorade labs, which resulted in the first ever wearable sweat sensor product – the Gx Sweat Patch.

Fitness enthusiasts and athletes can now track their hydration biomarkers instantly dur-

Endiatx

Innovation: PillBot™

Category/Subcategory: Game Changer

PillBot™ transforms a typical patient journey, one of gatekeeping, months of negotiation with insurance providers, test diets, drug regimens, and financial hurdles, into a simple zoom call from home. To date we are the only robot pill platform that operates under its own power, making PillBot™ a unique telemedicine offering.

The dream of micro-robotics inside the human body comes straight from the world of science fiction. If our ultimate goal is rice grain-sized brain surgeon robots, how do we get the adventure started?

We were inspired by the 2014 sale of the passive pill camera company Given Imaging to Covidien (now Medtronic). Our mission is to activate the pill camera by making it move under its own power, and to begin adding a series of tools to the platform to go beyond diagnostics into treatment. To date Pillbot™ by Endiatx is the only ing physical exercise. The Gx Sweat Patch now enables personalized hydration management across different activities and environments in the real world. electronic capsule that can move under its own power outside of any hospital or clinic - perfect for telemedicine.

By 2050 the world will see 50+ more high heat days per year, negatively impacting the health of everyone. Dehydration leads to significant performance degradation and chronic dehydration accumulates into negative long term health effects, similar to concussions. A low cost, non-invasive, ecofriendly, point of care diagnostic platform enabled by our wearable microfluidic technology provides enormous benefits, thereby by empowering people to take control of their daily health needs.

We also decided to make the upper endoscopy 10x cheaper, and 10x more accessible, treat patients with dignity, and catch cancers years earlier while we can still cure them!

We are currently testing Pillbot™ inside our own bodies. PillBot™ costs $50 to make and sells for $500 like a pill camera.

We transform the accumulated waste of an average of 5 trips to the hospital into just a few grams of plastic and e-waste. This is orders of magnitude less material impact on planet Earth.

PillBot™ brings world-class telemedicine to the far reaches of the world.

PillBot™ sets the stage for Pill Surgeon™, and beyond.