Austin, Texas, March 7th, 2019 - This week marks the final judging for SXSW 2019 and Leanne West, President of the International Children's Advisory Network will be front row in judging the well-deserved, well-earned finalist for the "Impact Pediatric Health Start-up Pitch Competition".
The Impact Pediatric Health Startup Pitch Competition is an opportunity for up-and-coming digital health and medical device startups to pitch their innovation to a panel of medical executives and investors during SXSW. The opportunity for new innovation underscores the reality that children are not just little adults. Children communicate differently, if at all. They respond differently to medications. They have different health issues, whether it’s a common disease or a rare one or an acute condition or a chronic one. Additionally, kids face different challenges in our healthcare system.
Supported by the eight top-ranked children’s hospitals in the United States, this one-of-a kind competition is a chance for startup CEOs to present how their company is solving the unique healthcare needs of babies, kids, and teens. Each selected finalist will be given approximately three minutes to pitch their startup to audience, followed by several minutes of questions from the emcee and judges panel. At the end of the event, the top companies will be announced and a cash prize will be awarded.
All companies selected to pitch will also have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with the presenting pediatric hospitals.
Competition finalists will receive:
Pre-event coaching SXSW Gold Badge and day pass for two representatives from your companyOpportunity to present your pitch in front of hospitals, investors and other industry leaders. In partnership with the Southwest National Pediatric Device Consortium (SWPDC.org), annual pediatric medical device awards have been added to the Impact Pediatric Health Pitch competition. Up to $100,000 in awards are available to support the advancement and commercialization of novel pediatric medical devices. Eligible devices must be FDA-regulated medical devices with a pediatric indication (0 – 21 years of age).
In addition to her roles as the President of iCAN and chapter member of KIDS Georgia, Leanne West is the Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technologies for the Georgia Institute of Tech and Chief Innovation Officer for the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Pediatric Technology Center. Her background includes sensing technologies, mobile health applications, and algorithm development. As Chief Engineer, she works closely with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to understand and identify problems that need a solution to allow Children’s to take better care of their patients. She also runs a funding program as a part of the relationship with Children’s called “Quick Wins,” which funds solutions to problems that are clinician-driven and that can be wholly solved in 18 months or less.
Leanne serves on the executive management team of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and on the health team within Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). She has served as the twice-elected Chair of the Georgia Tech Executive Board and is currently the Chair of the Charitable Campaign. She was recognized by Georgia Trend magazine as one of Georgia’s “40 Under 40” in 2004; she was selected for Leadership Georgia in 2008; she was a member of the team awarded the international Optical Society 2012 Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award; she received Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Achievement in Research Enterprise Enhancement Award in 2014, and she was Women in Technology’s Woman of the year in 2014. She also started her own company, Intelligent Access, to take her invention of a wireless personal captioning system to market.