CITRIS and the Banatao Institute are honored to announce the top five winners in the IT for Society category of the Big Ideas competition. Selected from a very competitive pool of more than 55 proposals from all 10 UC campuses, these innovative projects won a total of $20,000 in prizes. Congratulations to this year’s winners!
First-place winner LiftEd will participate in the 5th annual Big Ideas Grand Prize Pitch Day competition on April 27, and everyone is invited to the Big Ideas Awards Celebration on May 4. For more information on these events, or any questions about the contest, please visit the Big Ideas website.
1st place: LiftEd: Student Performance Measurement, Analysis and Reporting for Special Education Professionals
LiftEd is an iPad application that enables special education professionals to measure students’ academic and behavioral performance on individualized learning goals, analyze learning trends to modify instruction and intervention methods in real time, and ultimately share student progress with districts and parents on demand. Similar to an electronic health record, it provides a central repository for a student’s case team to track progress, collaborate and maintain a transferable record longitudinally.
2nd place: Wildfire (UC Berkeley)
Wildfire sends real-time notifications to your phone when a user reports dangerous activity nearby. Breaking local news is delivered to individual users without needing to unlock the phone. Getting informed on Wildfire does not depend on your social network; rather it is about being notified and helping inform others in your community based on who is nearby. If an emergency occurs, write an alert that is sent directly to your emergency contacts, your nearby community and a dashboard monitored by public safety officials, all with one button.
3rd place: et al. Health (UC Berkeley)
Through the use of natural language processing, a number of open APIs and a user-centered design philosophy, et al. Health is developing the world’s first doctor search tool based on a doctor’s clinical research experience. By providing honest, accurate and friendly information about physicians who study rare diseases, et al. Health’s mission is to help patients get useful and objective information that will help them get the treatment they need.
Honorable mention: PillPal (UC Berkeley)
PillPal is a simple application that integrates drug prices with a patient’s particular health insurance benefits to calculate a patient’s out-of-pocket costs. The application will feature three important services: upfront cost estimates, value-based suggestions, and price comparisons by location. PillPal will offer the patients the ability to compare prices for their medications by location so they can choose where they purchase their drugs based on not only proximity but cost as well.
Honorable mention: MindFull: By Medical Students, for Everyone (UC Irvine)
MindFull is a mobile application, designed by medical students and professionals, for the self-management of depression, anxiety and stress. MindFull provides a list of combination therapies that users can like, comment or mark as favorite, which it automatically rearranges in order of community preference and feedback. Day-by-day regimens are presented as 6 “tiles”; each tile can flip upon a “double tap” to provide users with more information, scientific citations, and local resources and providers.
Big Ideas Competition Photo Gallery
Photos: Nate Medina/CITRIS and the Banatao Institute
