We encourage students to begin thinking of ideas to submit for our unique Student Prize competition. This program offers substantial financial support for the work of successful entrants. The top three winning student teams, drawn from ten finalists, will receive $150,000, $100,000 and $50,000 respectively.  And the ten finalists will receive $10,000 each.  Our intention is to encourage technology innovation directed at the needs of Primary Healthcare.  We have given out over 70 awards nationally in the seven prior years of this competition.  These have been made possible by the generous support of the Gelfand Family Foundation.  The competition is administered by the “Ambulatory Care of the Future” program of the Massachusetts General Hospital. 

THE BASICS:

 Any graduate or undergraduate students of any U.S. engineering department may enter. The entry process begins with the simple online submission of a short two-page pre-proposal, describing their project, their team, and the potential clinical impact. The deadline for upload of these short-form entries will be April 18, 2016.  However, early planning increases the chances of success.  Forming teams and collaborations is important, as well as reaching out to primary-care clinicians for advice and mentoring.  Students are welcome to incorporate ideas from their course or research-project work.  Any intellectual property remains with your university, subject to your own policies. 

From the field of entries in April, the ten Finalists will be chosen.  As mentioned, each of those Finalists will receive $10,000.  They can use those funds for support while working toward a full ten-page proposal, due at the end of August.  From those full proposals, we will choose the top three winners.

For their online entry upload, students will need to include a scan of an "Institutional Letter of Support" from a Department Head, business official or Dean at your school.  All that is required is verification on letterhead that the entrant is a student in good standing and that your school will accept potential award money on behalf of support of the student’s work on his or her project without deduction of any indirect costs. The students may draw on these funds via your research administration for any allowable expenses in support of their work, including travel to present their work at conferences.

Details:

 Full details are posted on the apf.partners.org website, under the tab Student Prize.  Looking at prior years’ winners will provide you and your students with examples to stimulate their thinking. The announcement of the winners of the awards for 2015 can be seen by clicking here.  And the winners for 2014 can be found here.