In the News: Homegrown Innovation Set to Change Kids' Lives

Did you catch Brisbane-based PhD student, Athena Stein on television recently, telling the world about her neural stimulation device to reduce ‘brain fog’ among children with concussion and other acquired brain injuries?

Check out the full story via 10News Queensland!

Aspiring university-based innovators including Athena across the state now have a chance to win cash prizes to help accelerate their projects, thanks to our 2023 MAIC Queensland Student Bionics Challenge.

The Challenge builds on the success of last year’s round, which saw awards given to a range of life-changing novel technologies including a cough assistance device for people with spinal injury; a device for jaw rehabilitation following accident or trauma; and a brain-computer machine-controlled below-elbow prosthetic.

“Following the extraordinary results of 2022, we are now calling on Queensland’s next crop of university students with a ‘new to the world’ idea, or innovation delivering improvement in the design and patient benefits of a bionic device, implant or treatment,” said Bionic Gamechangers CEO, Dr Robyn Stokes.

“Together with our major partner, MAIC Queensland, we want to identify, reward and accelerate the work of young innovators – both with cash prizes, and our dedicated mentoring program that will help these students’ big ideas progress through early-stage research, to design and testing, regulatory approval and commercialisation.

“Ultimately, that equates to more technologies available in future to patients that help restore or enhance function, and that will fast track rehabilitation of those whose lives have been disrupted by traumatic events or intractable health conditions.”

Head to the 2023 MAIC Queensland Student Bionics Challenge of our website to find out more, and stay tuned for when winners are announced later this year!