Young scientists, inspired by the National Cancer Strategy and propose solutions

Cancer is a major public health issue. In Europe it is the second leading cause of death. It is a complex disease with very severe consequences, not only for cancer patients and their families but also for the society, the health system and the economy of each country.

The treatment of cancer must take various forms of action, such as identifying the causes of cancer, eliminating or reducing exposure to known risk factors, early diagnosis through pre-symptomatic control and finally the best possible treatment and rehabilitation.

The programme is coordinated by Junior Achievement Cyprus with the support of 8 partner organisations: The Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics, the Karaiskakio Foundation, the Cyprus Oncology Society, the Cyprus Patients’ Associations Federation, Cocoon Creations, IDEA, Cyprus Seeds and Cyens Centre of Excellence.

On February 5, 2022 at the Cine Studio (University of Nicosia) was held the Ceremony of completion of the first phase of the Beyond Pre-Accelerator programme where nine student teams presented their business plan and their minimum viable product (MVP) to the Jury Committee aiming at promoting innovation in the field of health and particularly in cancer. The 5 pillars of the National Cancer Strategy were the source of inspiration for the students’ business ideas.

Out of the nine teams that participated in the event, six of them passed to the next phase of the programme after the evaluation of the distinguished judges.  The six student teams will be supported both financially and in kind to further develop their product or service.

The innovative ideas of the nine teams are the following:

1. Knights Rest: A sleep-safe at home solution for head and neck cancer patients who are at high risk of developing aspiration pneumonia.
2. CANcelors: A web platform where patients, families and friends will be able to build communities to share their experiences, journeys, and difficulties with one another.
3. MammoCheck: A safe and easy to use device which gives women the possibility to detect early-stage breast cancer from home.
4. Cancivoc: A rapid cancer detection breath test, a sensitive method of cancer detection using breath analysis.
5. BreastMeUp: Monitors breast cancer survivors’ physical and mental symptoms with their main goal to be early recurrency detection and real-time data collection.
6. Phoenix: An application building an online community of cancer patients and caregivers for psychological support.
7. Diligens: An AI-powered tool that assists histopathologists with the identification of tissue characteristics and provides a proposed diagnosis.
8. Struport: A software-base quality assurance tool to standardize breast cancer reporting.
9. HPF: A product that detects the concentration of certain biomarkers in a patient’s saliva and assists the doctor with the medical care they provide.

The jury consisted of Andreas Papadopoulos (JA Cyprus), Loukia Samata (Novartis Oncology), Dr. Pavlos Kosteas (Karaiskakio Foundation), Kyriakos Kyriakou (Tech Association Cyprus), Andreas Koupparis (CYBAN), Monica Ioannidou-Polemitis (MAP Innovation) and Panagiotis Philimis (CyRIC).

The Beyond Pre-Accelerator programme is a bridge between entrepreneurship training programmes implemented in universities and specialized Incubators and Accelerators. Essentially, students of all levels (Bachelor, Master, PhD) and different backgrounds, medicine, IT, Business, Engineering and other create multidisciplinary groups and are guided to develop their own business ideas in the field of health, up to the creation of a minimum viable product.

The programme is sponsored by Novartis Oncology Cyprus.

JA Cyprus is a member of JA Worlwide, the biggest Non-Profit Organisation in the world that promotes the development of entrepreneurship, financial literacy and work readiness in youth. For more information you can visit www.jacyprus.org or contact us at 97-715909.