Breast IT, a Ugandan technology innovation that seeks to ease cancer diagnosis has won the Pistoia Alliance President’s Startup Challenge 2018 in Boston. It beat four other innovations and start-ups to the big prize of $20,000( UGX76M)
The Pistoia Alliance President’s Startup Challenge is for informatics and technology-focused startups aiming to impact the way life science R&D is performed. The award seeks to reward startups that help move the biopharmaceutical industry from the traditional ways of operating and help adopt new technologies and ways of working.
The Breast IT technology is made up of both the software, a mobile phone application and the hardware which performs the cancer screening role. The hardware is a custom glove which is hovered the breast to detect cancer. It uses ultrasound waves to send the images to the mobile phone once it detects a lump or a tumour.
Speaking to Guru8 from Boston, Mr Moris Atwiine one of the founders and brain behind Breast IT remarked; “It’s really humbling for us to be recognized by a group of life sciences industry experts at a global level, and with this cash prize, we shall be able to conduct further testing of the product.”
The two winners will receive 6 months of mentorship and support from a leading industry expert from amongst our membership.
The Pistoia Alliance is a group of life sciences industry experts who use pre-competitive collaboration to address issues around aggregating, accessing, and sharing data that are essential to innovation but provide little competitive advantage.
