Niramai , AliveCor and InSensus are the startups who won the Open-F@b Call4ideas 2017, proclaimed during the final event of the fourth edition of the international contest promoted by BNP Paribas Cardif, in collaboration with Insurance Up, Open Up and Medici. To select in real time the best ideas on Preventive Insurance were both a jury of experts and the audience in the hall. They voted the winners during an exciting Innovation Battle, where finalists promoted their ideas by challenging each other with passion and creativity. The three winners will now be supported by the BNP Paribas Cardif R&D team in the development of their project, by taking into account the needs of the market and of the Company.
Open-F@b Call4Ideas 2017 has been welcomed by start-ups and innovators, from all over the Italian country, who submitted their projects from Lombardy to Sicily, from Puglia to Friuli Venezia Giulia and so on. Not only. This year, the Call4Ideas received so many subscriptions from abroad, that international participants were even half the total.
What do the three best projects propose and why were they chosen? With Niramai (India) it will be possible to identify breast cancer in a safe and non-invasive way, with Kardia Mobile, the solution proposed by AliveCor (USA), it will be possible to identify atrial fibrillation in real time and help to prevent heart attacks in patients at risk, while In-K Strain System, presented by InSensus (Italy, offers a completely new approach to structural monitoring, measuring strain, temperature, tilt and seismic activity of buildings. Among the key factors that led the three ideas to the victory are the high technological content joined to the concreteness and feasibility of the project, as well as the effective ability to take a step forward with Preventive Insurance, by allowing an immediate intervention thanks to the use of preventing and monitoring systems.
“We are delighted to have been pioneers in our sector, by understanding as early as in 2014 that a contest like Open-F@b could become a consolidated open innovation model well inscribed in our broader innovation strategy with internal and external initiatives aimed at designing tomorrow’s insurance” – said Isabella Fumagalli, CEO of BNP Paribas Cardif in Italy – “Now being at the fourth edition, a longevity shared by few contests, with an even higher qualitative level of the proposals and a great deal of participation from all over Italy and abroad, confirms how this Call4Ideas has become a steady international event and how the topics are perceived as fundamental by innovators. Thanks to the collaboration with the start-ups we began to no longer think as a traditional insurance company. We entered into the logic of other markets and we are developing, along with some of the winners of the recent editions, more “disruptive” insurance solutions that will be enabled on the market very soon.”
Event Program
With the presenting of Luca Viscardi, radio presenter and blogger, the event was held yesterday at “Spazio Gessi” in Milan and was opened by the greetings of Isabella Fumagalli, CEO of BNP Paribas Cardif in Italy, Andrea Rangone, CEO of Digital 360 and Giovanni Iozzia, Director of InsuranceUp and EconmomyUp. This year’s novelty was the Innovation Battle: a real challenge among the finalists who have competed face-to-face and have been voted by BNP Paribas Cardif Top Management, innovation experts, journalists and bloggers, and also by the audience in the hall, who was able to participate directly in the choice of the winners. The program of the event, which ended with the award ceremony of the winning projects by Andrea Veltri, Chief Marketing Officer & Strategy of BNP Paribas Cardif, was completed by Q&A for the finalists and by the speeches of Insurtech experts that brought their experience. Among them, Amit Goel, Founder and CIO of MEDICI and Aziza Idrissi Janati, Startup Program Lead Manager of OpenUp and Chedy Riahi Partnerships Manager of OpenUp.
Open-F@b Call4ideas 2017: the winners
First place: NIRAMAI
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women. Preventive identification is the key factor to increase survival rates and to reduce treatment costs. Current methods of control show that they can’t detect cancer early. Mammography, for example, fails in this in young women because of cell density in the breast. Niramai has developed a solution to identify breast cancer in a safe and privacy-friendly way. This solution is low-cost, portable and works for women of different ages. Niramai uses artificial intelligence technology as a core part of its solution.
Project – Accurate, accessible, automated
Niramai has developed a non-invasive method for breast cancer’s identification. The tool can detect early stages of malignancy with a completely privacy-friendly method. The solution includes a portable hardware with a thermal camera and a cloud software patented by Niramai. The thermal camera is used to detect the temperature distribution on the subject’s chest. This temperature map is carefully analyzed by Niramai’s solution to automatically generate a report of the cancer diagnosis for the subject. The solution was tested on 1500 patients.
Preventive Insurance
A solution could include the Niramai test as part of a “Preventive Health” check-up proposed by an insurance company. This proposal could be carried on insured women customers of any age. Early detection of breast cancer can reduce treatment costs and survival rates. The test can also be repeated several times without any collateral effects. The solution can work on groups of any age, possibly also in men.
Second place: ALIVECOR
Based in Silicon Valley, AliveCor was founded in 2011 by two Australian engineers and a Harvard clinician/inventor. They developed technology to show live ECG recordings on smart phones and tablets that can detect atrial fibrillation and help prevent serious strokes in susceptible patients. With important investments from individual entrepreneurs, the BP monitoring company Omron, AliveCor continues to research and develop new technologies to monitor heart activity.
Project – Convenience, reliability, simplicity
Heart attacks caused by atrial fibrillation are usually severe and associated with a significant mortality rate. The detection of atrial fibrillation by the AliveCor solution has proved to be cost-effective. Kardia Mobile can be attached to your phone to provide live diagnostic quality ECG recordings with a real-time trace, anytime and anywhere, by taking just 30 seconds. It accurately detects atrial fibrillation (AF) and measures heart rate too. The recordings can be instantly emailed and stored for review by a dottore.
Preventive Insurance
By being a low-cost device, Kardia Mobile can be given or loaned to patients that fit the AF profile. They make a recording as and when it happens and email it immediately to their doctor for review. This gives fast diagnosis, fast initiation of medicine therapy (anticoagulants) therapy and therefore dramatically reduces the risk of stroke. These patients have a five times higher risk of stroke than other people and the subsequent ongoing cost of care can be considerable, possibly for the rest of their lives.
Third place: INSENSUS
InSensus Project was set up in June 2015 to develop an innovative system for monitoring structures and infrastructures (Structural Heath Monitoring) capable of assessing in real time and remotely the conditions of infrastructures (eg bridges, tunnels, dams, pipelines) and civil works (eg buildings, monuments).
Project – Prevention, safety, resilience
In-K Strain System is a system of Structure Health Monitoring. It offers a new approach to structural monitoring: standard, low-cost, adaptable and stand-alone solution. Four main values are measured: strain, temperature, declivity and seismic activity (additional parameters can be integrated).
Preventive Insurance
InSensus’ SHM systems are able to provide important benefits to Preventive Insurance in terms of lower insurance risk and costs: increased security trough optimized maintenance; improved diagnosis of structural alteration to its onset; reduced maintenance costs; real-time assessment and precise remaining lifetime prediction; reduced post-event downtime; compliance with government regulations.
