3rd Patient Innovation Awards
at the conference “Opening up to an era of Social Innovation”

The ceremony for the 3rd Patient Innovation Awards ceremony was held on November 28 at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal, in the context of the conference “Opening up to a new era of Social Innovation”. The ceremony gathered patient/caregiver innovators and entrepreneurs, members from academia, government officials, representatives of the EC, among others and it was a huge success!

The conference was jointly organized by the European Commission, the Portuguese Government and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and was hosted by Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Maria Manuel Leitão Marques, Minister of the Presidency and of Administrative Modernisation of Portugal, and Isabel Mota, President of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The conference also had the presence of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, President of the Portuguese Republic.

We would like to thank the organizers for inviting us to be part of this excellent conference.

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Meeting the President
of the Portuguese Republic

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the president of the Portuguese Republic, met the Patient Innovation laureates: Lisa Pape, Gerard Niyondiko, Bodo and Lorelei Hoenen and Rita Basile, on November 27th, the day before the award ceremony. Since its early beginning Patient Innovation has been "Under the High Patronage of the President of the Portuguese Republic."

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The 3^rd Patient Innovation
Awards Ceremony

The 3^rd Patient Innovation ceremony took place at the main auditorium of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. With a full room, Pedro Oliveira and Helena Canhão, Patient Innovation leaders, introduced the laureates and their stories.

The winners had time to present themselves and their innovations, before receiving the awards. The awards and diplomas were delivered by: by Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Maria Manuel Leitão Marques, Minister of the Presidency and of Administrative Modernisation of Portugal, Pedro Norton, Executive Administrator of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Manuel Heitor, Minister of Science, Technology and High Education.

Patient Innovation Lifetime Special Award presented by Sir Richard Roberts

For the first time, Patient Innovation gave a Lifetime Special Award. This category was created to honor Robin Cavendish (1930 – 1944) and his wife Diana Cavendish, who attended the ceremony.

Robin Cavendish was born in 1930, in UK. After being in the army, Robin started up a tea-broking business in Africa. In 1957, he married Diana and went to Kenya. They had one son – Jonathan Cavendish (who produced the inspiring movie “Breathe”, about Robin and Diana’s life). At the age of 28, Robin became ill with polio, which made him paralyzed from the neck down. He lived in the hospital where he was breathing through a mechanical ventilator. But against the doctor’s advice, Diana decided to move Robin to their house, and they invented several innovations to help with this process – one of them was a wheelchair with a ventilator attached.

Nobel Laureate Sir Richard Roberts (Member of the Advisory Board of Patient Innovation and Member of the Jury of the Awards) addressed the audience, via videoconference, and announced the “Patient Innovation Lifetime Special Award”.

The ceremony featured a full auditorium, and was attended by several distinguished guests, such as Kirsty Hayes, British Ambassator to Portugal and Michael Suhr, Ambassator of Denmark to Portugal.

Patient Innovation European Tour

Our Patient Innovation European tour keeps on going!

The “Beyond the lab: The DIY science revolution”, an exhibition about do it yourself innovations features Patient Innovation and seven of our innovations on display!

The exhibition opened in Bonn (Germany), in 2016, and has then visited 20 European countries, including our hometown, Lisbon, Portugal. The exhibition has already received over 1 million visitors.

Beyond The Lab is now open at:

• Centre For Research and Analysis, in Sofia (Bulgaria);

• Discovery Center Continium, in Kerkrade (Netherlands).

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The Patient Innovation team wishes you a Merry Christmas and an excellent new year of 2018!

Patient Innovation (Non-profit Association) is a spin-off from collaborative research conducted at Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, Nova Medical School, MIT Sloan School of Management and Carnegie Mellon University.