BME-BUET Wins 3rd Place in UBORA Design Competition 2018

A team of BME/BUET undergraduate students, Farhana Islam and Mehnaz Urbee, held the 3rd position in the final stage of the UBORA Biomedical Engineering Design Competition 2018 out of 79 submissions from around the world. One member of the winning team will receive a full travel allowance to attend the UBORA Design School to be held in Pisa, Italy. The UBORA Design Competition 2018, funded by EU Horizon 2020, sought innovative biomedical engineering solutions from students (individuals or teams) addressing health-care problems faced by the aging society. The winning project idea proposed by the BME students was titled “A smartphone app for the early diagnosis and cognitive rehabilitation of dementia patients”. The mHealth application was proposed to be able to detect the occurrence or recurrence of neural catastrophe as well as exercise the brain cells using an Android App. The team was mentored by Dr. Taufiq Hasan, Assistant Professor, BME, BUET.

 

The focus of UBORA design competition 2018 was on the health-care problems faced by the aging society. According to WHO, the pace of population aging today is faster than ever before. Between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world’s population older than 60 years will nearly double from 12% to 22% (from 900 million to 2 billion). In 2050, 80% of older people will be living in low- and middle-income countries. Numerous underlying physiological changes occur with increasing age and for older people the risks of developing chronic disease and care dependency increase. By the age of 60 years, the major burden of disability and death arises from age-related losses in hearing, seeing and moving, and conditions such as dementia, heart disease, stroke, chronic respiratory disorder, non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and musculoskeletal impairments (e.g. osteoarthritis and back pain). Due to these various risks faced by the aging population, it is high time to address their needs through effective and innovative biomedical engineering solutions.

Photo: The BME Undergraduate students of the winning team, Farhana Islam (right) and Mehnaz Urbee (left).