Ameen Hadeed’s father had heart surgery in 2015 but finding the drugs to aid his recovery was not easy. The clinic had no medicine, so Ameen had to find prescriptions for his dad, a process that was expensive and time-consuming.

“It was very stressful. Without the medication, he could have died,” Ameen said.

Five years later, Ameen created a new app, the Pharx app, that directs patients and relatives to pharmacies that have the medication they need and indicated where products are most cheaply available.

Happy hypoxia is a worrying condition which has been affecting coronavirus patients. Some patients are absolutely fine and apparently not in distress but have oxygen levels so low they would normally be unconsciousness or even dead.

Medics raised the alarm that many people were getting to hospital too late and should be brought in much sooner. NHS England started a pilot scheme giving patients devices that could monitor their oxygen levels at home.

J.J. Guzman is a five years old and has limited speaking ability and a rare condition that makes it difficult for him to see and control his arms and hands. A student from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), James Brosnan, designed a board that will help JJ to communicate and play independently.

JJ was using a cookie sheet with letter magnets on it to communicate with his teachers and peers, but James noticed the difficulties in handling it. "His problems were very direct, so I was able to come up with fairly direct solutions,” James said.

After one of his patients who was putting off multiple appointments claiming she was too busy, contracted cervical cancer, Dr. Samsami was inspired to create a device that has the potential to save countless lives.

Dr. Samsami issued his patent for an at-home, do-it-yourself pap smear. The device allows to test for cervical cancer and common sexually transmitted diseases.

Torpout Nyarikjor is an Ethiopian student who lost his brother to the mosquito-borne disease. “When I was young, I witnessed my older brother die of malaria. At the time I felt deeply sad and believed that I could one day stop it, but I didn’t know how,” Torpout said.

Torpout invented a device, called ‘Tor’, to detect malaria instantly. By inserting a finger in the device, laser sensors can identify whether the blood is infected or not. “Anyone who can read can use the device,” Torpout said.

When Joseph was a baby, his mother, Lauren, would give him a fingertip massage on his back or belly to help him relax. Lauren realised that there were not products in the market able to naturally soothe him and came up with the idea of the Baby Soothe.

Baby Soothe is a massager that simulates a mother’s touch. It helps relieving fussiness, gas and discomfort in babies and also it helps them sleep. The device is portable, small and light weighted. The device is meant to help parents while their hands are busy, and not replace them.

Chad is the dad of seven kids, including quintuplets, who invented some devices and processes to easier the life with five little babies.

“One of the first things we had to do was create a big playroom, somewhere where we knew they could all be at the same time without any dangers, we had to take anything sharp and valuable out for good," Chad said.

“We have made all sorts of things to help, including props to hold their bottles for them when feeding so we don't have to feed them one at a time and a custom table that can seat them all at once," Chad said.

Stephen and Elizabeth suffer from disabilities and they also teach disabilities studies at the University of Maine. In 2008, Elizabeth was training for a triathlon but, while training, she realised her terrible balance would prevent her from participating.

“We looked around for a device, and we could only find stigmatized, ugly devices,” Elizabeth said. “Stephen’s background is in art. I said, ‘Let’s invent something that looks good and that functions, too.’”

Genesis Politron teaches in a preschool and kindergarten for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. While observing the kids playing, she realised there was a problem because none of the toys was like the kids. To help the kids feel more represented, Genesis made alterations the toys.

Tim Squires established the TJS Snookerbility charity in 2011 at the Haverhill Ex Sercicemen’s Club and became a World Snooker coach. Tim came up with a new snooker rest after seeing wheelchair users struggling to judge how far their cue was from the cue ball when using a normal rest.

Tim created a prototype of his invention and it was used for the first time at World Disability Billiards and Snooker regional tournament in 2016.

Elaine was born premature and with cerebral palsy, a lifelong physical disability that affects both movement and posture. Elaine enjoys painting, using a paintbrush held in her mouth and with the help of volunteers at the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Singapore (CPAS) who help her to move the canvas and dispense paint. When a team of engineers met Elaine, they decided to develop an e-canvas to help her painting.

When Sofia was 10, she witnessed her grandmother collapsing because of a heart attack. “That was something that struck me as terrifying — how someone can seem fine one moment and then collapse the next,” said Sofia. From her experience, she had the idea to create a device able to predict heart disease risk.

Sofia reviewed existing scientific literature and spoke with several cardiac experts and cardiologists while at high school. After taking a class on machine learning, Sofia saw how to apply the technology to predict heart disease risk.

Gena Mann felt a great sense of isolation when her two sons were diagnosed with autism. “My kids were in therapy all day and my life was so different from the other moms I knew,” she said. When Carissa Tozzi, Gena’s friend, proposed to Gena the idea to create an online community for parents of children with special needs, wolfandfriends.com was born.

Biel is a child who has low vision that cannot be corrected with regular glasses, medicine or surgery. People suffering from low vision have some vision capacity but not enough to carry on their daily living. Biel parents founded a startup in 2017 bringing experts together to help their son.

Remy Eichner has a friend with a cochlear implant who could not ride horses because no helmet would fit over the device. Remy’s friend options are either to ride without a helmet or ride without the device to fit the helmet, but both these options undermine safety. Remy developed a helmet that can provide more freedom to people with limited hearing that need a cochlear implant.

Matthew Shifrin is a blind entrepreneur who, with the help of his babysitter, has been creating language-based instructions to play with LEGO for blind kids since he was a teenager. After he launched his own website where he was sharing instructions, many parents reached out asking for more information. The interest from parents gave him the idea to approach the LEGO company and scale up the project.

To participate in the James Dyson Award competition held in 2019 in UAE, students Ali Asgar Salim and Amer Siddiqui, had to develop and idea that was to find a solution to an existing problem. Initially, they wanted to create something revolving around solar energy and the environment however, because it was too expensive to execute, they changed direction.

Remembering conversation with some relatives who are constricted to a wheelchair, Ali and Amer decided to focus on how to make the wheelchair users’ experience more pleasant.

Bill McManus is an assistant in a special-needs classroom, after remembering the isolation that kids with disabilities can experience, he thought about modifying a chair so that these kids could also be included. He was inspired by an 8th-grade girl confined to a wheelchair watching her classmates enjoying and having fun during the P.E. class.

Cao Nguyễn Hùng’s mum had her legs broke in an accident and is forced to sit in one place. Hùng and his school colleague, Nguyễn Đình Nhật Tân, invented a smart chair for disabled people to help Hung’s mum and those without limb mobility like her to eat, take medicine and send alerts.

“I studied, designed and programmed the product with the help of my friend Nguyễn Đình Nhật Tân,” said Hung.
“The product made the care and monitoring of patients simpler,” said Hung. “Even remote carers can interact with their patients through the internet.”

When Chua Yi Xiang helped an elderly man with a walking stick who had slipped and fell on a wet road, he got the inspiration to develop a walking stick that could prevent slipping on wet surfaces.

Chua and his college mate, Jenson Ting Kian Seng, developed Ely Walking Stick. When there is a wet surface, the stick vibrates to alert the users, and when there is poor light or is dark, the stick will light up.