Desjardins Group—in cooperation with Hacking Health, Montréal, Smart and Digital City and InnoCité MTL—held the Cooperathon 2016 finals last Friday. The event was an opportunity for business, health and technology professionals to show their ingenuity in creating innovative solutions for the various concerns facing the healthcare and fintech sectors.
This year’s Cooperathon was a four-week event that saw 70 submissions. Forty-three (43) of those promising ideas were selected to compete during the semi-finals on October 30, which was further pared down to 15 finalists. The finalists appeared before the Cooperathon jury on November 4.
Dominique Anglade, Minister of Economy, Science and Innovation, and Minister responsible for Digital Strategy, was present at the event. Also present were Rita de Santis, Minister responsible for Access to Information and the Reform of Democratic Institutions; and Harout Chitilian, Vice-President of Ville de Montréal’s Executive Committee and responsible for information technology and smart city.
“The Cooperathon is perfectly in line with Desjardins’s mission. In a context of co-creation, the Cooperathon successfully combines innovation with cooperation,” said Desjardins Group managing vice-president of Strategy and Innovation Office Martin Brunelle in a statement.
“Bringing together all these experts can result in the creation of many solutions that could eventually make a difference in people’s lives and in community development.”
The winner of the Cooperathon 2016 grand prize of $6,000, plus support and access to various partner tools and programs, was Team 19 - @cœur. The team is developing an application to ensure optimum monitoring of patients with heart problems. In addition to the cash prize and support, the team was also awarded a Microsoft BizSpark licence for two years and a pass to Startupfest 2017.
The Smart City grand prize winner was Team 95 - Société logique, which came up with the concept of improving information sharing and active transportation networks that are both safe and accessible. The team was awarded $2,000 and support from the Smart and Digital City campaign.
The Fintech grand prize went to Team 22 – Just Insuring for its idea of an application that allows clients to take out an insurance policy by simply specifying what is valuable to them. The app then allows clients to request an offer from insurers. On top of the $3,000 cash prize, Just Insuring also won a physical workspace at Ferst Capital Partners’ office, the opportunity of being hosted by District 3 in the Fintech D3 program, and three consultation hours from Finance Montréal and access to their network.
Team 10 - ALLOS, mon avatar allergique, won the health grand prize. The team created a fun-to-use application for children with food allergies. The app allows children to choose an avatar to help them mitigate allergic reactions and access a medical team in real time. ALLOS was awarded $3,000, participation in Hacking Health Accelerator’s “Fast Bootcamp,” and a business lunch with managers from Desjardins Insurance in the Desjardins Lab.
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