Congratulations to Jesslyn Janssen, Albensi Laboratory, on Team Biohack’s 2nd place win at the University of Manitoba’s Gamechanger competition. The final competition was held February 11, 2016 at the Engineering and Information Technology Complex (EITC) Atrium at the Fort Garry Campus, University of Manitoba. The team took home a $5000 prize.
Game Changer is an “idea competition” that gives university students and post-doctoral fellows from all disciplines an opportunity to identify global problems and work in teams to devise innovative solutions, with a chance of winning up to $10,000 in cash prizes. Students begin by submitting “problems” to be reviewed by a selection committee, then 10 submitted “solutions” continue to the final event. Janssen’s team tackled the question “How can we detect early-onset Alzheimer’s disease before there is irreversible damage?” Their proposed solution is a two-pronged approach to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease, using a finger prick blood test in combination with a Virtual Reality spatial navigation test.
Judges for the competition included:
Sarah McCullough, Knowledge Economy Strategic; Science, Innovation, and Business Development Division; Jobs and the Economy, Province of Manitoba
Jeff Ryzner, President, The Eureka Project
Alberto Velasco, Project Manager, World Trade Centre Winnipeg
Mike Williams, Patent Agent, Ade & Company Inc.