Launch of Te Toka Tumai Auckland MedTech Incubator
In January 2022, Ara Manawa received a Health Research Council grant to explore how we enable innovation within Auckland Hospital and accelerate the translation of research into innovation.
We spoke with over 160 people (nationally and internationally), read until our eyes fell out (good thing we work in a hospital!), ran numerous workshops, developed, and tested prototypes... made engineers and clinicians get creative – we even created poetry from the words of our innovators!
We had high ambitions to really shake things up in our environment. But the timing wasn’t quite right for our grand master plans. People were tired from two years of fighting a pandemic, and we are now going through a once in a generation health transformation.
Being Ara Manawa, we kept chipping away, not easily being swayed by failure (in fact, we love and embrace it). By Mid-2022, Te Toka Tumai officially joined as a partner for MedTech iQ Aotearoa, to catalyse medical innovations from clinicians. Now we had even more incentive to move things forward.
Through our collaborative R&D, using human-centred design, we landed on a 3-month incubator programme for our clinicians. Not the huge organisational change strategy we aspired to, but we believe it covers many of the needs identified in the discovery process:
It allows staff time and space to innovate and bring their ideas to life.
Allows access to seed funding.
Provides bespoke, hands-on support to learn and develop capability.
Draws on, encourages, and nurtures collaboration with the wider ecosystem.
Has a non-negotiable foundation of diversity, equity, ethics sustainability and inclusion throughout, creating solutions that uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi
On May 2, 2023 we launched the pilot of our inaugural Te Toka Tumai MedTech Incubator. For the next few months, we’ll be working closely with five teams to develop their diverse and novel ideas. The teams are further supported by a network of 20 mentors from across the MedTech ecosystem – amazing people sharing their expertise and wisdom … and braving this journey with us.
Our innovators will go through an educational module every week, that will teach them about the different stages of the medical and health tech innovation roadmap. These modules are co-delivered by collaboration with our own Māori Health Directorate, Te Titoki Mataora (the MedTech Research Translator), Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, RespirAQ, the Cerebral Palsy Society, and the University of Auckland.
Our programme ends auspiciously around the same time the MedTech iQ Tamaki Makaurau will be activating. One of our key goals as a MedTech iQ partner is to develop a pipeline of clinician-innovators and ideas that can be catalysed and grown further with their R&D and commercialisation infrastructure.
Innovation is hard. Innovating in the health and medical space is even more difficult. But it is possible with the power and support of the collective. We’re incredibly lucky and fortunate to have this network of believers.
Wish us luck, watch this space to see how the next three months unfold!
THANKS
So many people!!
Our key partner:
Te Titoki Mataora
Our sponsors:
Dr Marg Wilsher, Chief Medical Officer, Te Toka Tumai
Jennie Montague, Head of Exec Services, Te Toka Tumai
Justin Kennedy-Good, Director of Ara Manawa, Te Toka Tumai
Our participants:
Doug Campbell, Anaesthesia
William Law, Paramedic and Anaesthetist
Shira Arad, Consultant Psychiatrist
Kim Brackley, Clinical Lead Pharmacist joined by her team:
Amy Chan, Research Fellow and Pharmacist
Professor Michelle Honey, Programme Director School of Nursing, University of Auckland
Trudi Aspen, Senior Lecturer, Pharmacy, University of Auckland
Denish Kumar, Simulation Technician at Douglas Simulation, joined by
Trish Wood, Ops Manager at Douglas Simulation
Our mentors and collaborators:
Michael Sheedy, Head of Bioengineering at Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand Waitaha Canterbury
David White, Director of Biodesign Lab AUT
Sue Pauwels, Business Innovation Advisor Callaghan Innovation
Jordan McIntyre, Clinical Research Practitioner, Starship Research and Innovation
Byron van Vugt, Investment Manager NZ Growth Capital Partners
Ella Dixon, Research Analyst Auckland Bioengineering Institute and MedTech iQ
Matthew Wilson, Head of Product RespirAQ
Dmitry Yu Selitskiy, CEO Thought-Wired
Amy Hogan, Head of Research at the Cerebral Palsy Society
Andrew Cameron, Business Development Manager providing commercialisation support from the NZ Health Innovation Hub
Ju Zhang, CEO Formus Labs
Denise Taylor, Professor of Physiotherapy AUT
Mark Robinson, Business Innovation Advisor Callaghan Innovation
Andrew Paterson, Business Innovation Advisor Callaghan Innovation
Danielle Lottridge, Associate Professor in Computer Science University of Auckland
Ethan R. Plaut, Senior Lecturer in Communication & Technology, University of Auckland
John Windsor, Surgeon & Director of the STaR Centre and the Surgical Trials Unit
Alex Payne, Senior Product Development Engineer Fisher and Paykel Healthcare
Georgia Lee, CEO V1ewpoint Medical
Diana Siew, Strategic Partnerships Lead, Auckland Bioengineering Institute
Larissa Michelson, Senior Sustainability Specialist, Fisher and Paykel Healthcare
Josh Koko, Māori Health Lead, Te Toka Tumai
John Kingi, Māori Health Lead, Te Toka Tumai
Kerry Hiini, Māori Equity Innovation Lead, Te Toka Tumai
Rosie Dobson, Senior Research Fellow, National Institute of Health Innovation
Natalia Lopez, Co-founder of Kitea Health
Yaara Yarmut, Chief Regulatory Officer, Alimetry
Izzy Bigio, Platform Manager, Blackbird Ventures
James Palmer, Associate, Blackbird Ventures
AUTHOR
Sarvnaz Taherian, Principal Design Strategist, Ara Manawa
CONTRIBUTORS
Elina Ashimbayeva, Senior Experience Designer, Ara Manawa
Melody Chen, Senior Product Design Engineer, Ara Manawa
Charlotte Cooper, Senior Experience Designer, Ara Manawa
Kylie Clampitt, Senior Product Design Engineer, Ara Manawa
Jodi Meadows, Senior Experience Designer, Ara Manawa