Oral cancer screening in India
Another $10 challenge group worked to improve health care delivery and access to effective screening tools to diagnose oral cancer in a broader population, targetting the vast rural Indian population where the prevalence is a staggering 65%. The team’s specific field of interest is the implementation of oral cancer screening in India aiming to reduce the high disease burden, morbidity, and mortality resulting from a lack of comprehensive screening.
The team utilized both global health resources at their respective universities as well as the entrepreneurial expertise from mentors in Silicon Valley to work with engineers and developers of deep learning screening algorithms in India. The goal was to develop a user-friendly mobile application that can be used by healthcare workers and/or community leaders throughout India. The team hopes that by bringing the screening tools directly to the communities most in need, they can eliminate the barriers that prevent adequate screening and thus early access to care. “The learning process is by far what is most important in the $10 Challenge,” says Pernille Horsted Kjaer from Aalborg University and a DARE Fellow, who worked on the oral cancer screening tool.
“The perspectives and input that you get from the other team members, mentors and subject matter experts at our monthly meet-ups is something that I will use going forward.”
Tools for the future
In 2019/20, a total of 35 students participated in the $10 Challenge and for the first time, a team from University of Los Andes in Colombia joined remotely.
The $10 Challenge is anchored at Innovation Center Denmark in Palo Alto, which also runs theDARE fellowship program. Initially it was the DARE Fellowship program that triggered the idea of the $10 Challenge; Five medical students from Denmark doing research at Stanford and UCSF universities for a year, funded by the Lundbeck Foundation. But Shomit believed the students should get the opportunity to experience innovation in Silicon Valley first-hand.
“The program aims to mirror the real-world innovation process as much as possible and gives the students a valuable experience that they may not get anywhere else. We try to expose the students to the thinking and creation process that is unique to Silicon Valley and give them tools that they can use in their future career,” says Shomit and continues “I have been amazed by some of the ideas and solutions that are created by the students – they are really top-notch and although they are conceived initially only as ideas in the program, I am certain that they could make a difference in the real world.”
In 2019 the $10 Challenge program was selected as a finalist in the prestigious AMEE annual award in medical teaching excellence. The Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) is a worldwide organization with members in 90 countries on five continents. AMEE promotes international excellence in education in the health professions across the continuum of undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education.
