The Oxy Jet project of BUET is declared the Global Winner of ‘IMAGINE IF!’, a healthcare-centric startup competition organized by the Innovation Forum based in Cambridge, UK.
The project also won the 2021 Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) student design competition organized in the USA in close succession.
The UK-based IMAGINE IF! competition was held in two rounds. The first round took place in the regional branches of the InnovationForum located in Oxford, Cambridge, London, Manchester, Barcelona, New York, San Francisco, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Lausanne, Okinawa, Euskadi, and Dhaka. Out of more than 500 global submissions, the top 15 startups were selected from the top performers in the regional competition.
Oxy Jet became the runner-up in the local finals round held in August 2021, competing with the top 10 startups from Bangladesh & India. Other contestants in the Global Finals were from different countries in Europe, mainly from the UK. Oxy Jet was declared the global winner on November 11, 2021, after the Global Final round took place in Barcelona, Spain.
This is the first time a startup from the South Asian region won the IMAGINE IF! Contest. The judging panel of the IMAGINE IF! competition consisted of numerous renowned healthcare professionals, including the Head of Innovation of Astra Zeneca. The judges mentioned that they took a unanimous decision in declaring Oxy Jet as the winner due to the progress of the project and the immediate impact of the device in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the other hand, the US-based competition BMES-Medtronic Student Design Competition was organized by BMES, which is the largest professional society of Biomedical Engineers in the USA. First, BUET’s Oxy Jet was among the top three Covid-19 related biomedical engineering design projects selected from worldwide submissions. In this final round, the contestants were Duke University (USA), the University of California at Los Angeles (USA), and BUET (Bangladesh). Finally, on November 22, 2021, the judges declared BUET’s as the winner of the contest.
This is the first time a university from the South Asian region was able to win this prestigious contest.
The Oxy Jet device is a non-invasive C-PAP (Continuous Positive Air-way Pressure) ventilator developed in BUET. It was invented in mid-2020 by researchers of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, BUET.
Later the device received approval from the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) in July 2021 after completing a 3-phase clinical trial conducted at Dhaka Medical College & Hospital (DMCH). By attaching the device with the hospital’s oxygen supply or a cylinder, it can generate up to 60 liters/min of oxygen without any electric power. The Oxy Jet project is led by Dr. Taufiq Hasan, Associate Professor, BME, BUET.