It would be great if we could look back in a year’s time and say we had developed a product or service which really changed the lives of the thousands of people in the UK living with a brain injury.
-Karen Bevan
The organisers of a ground-breaking initiative to find solutions to a range of problems facing people with a brain injury – or to prevent head injury in the first place – are calling on the people of Cambridge to help.
Headway Cambridgeshire launched its Mind Your Head Grand Challenge earlier this year – and is now asking the public to help come up with ideas for new products or services which could benefit people with a brain injury.
Mind Your Head has elements of TV shows The Apprentice and Dragons’ Den.
‘Crowd-sourced’ ideas will be presented to a team of experts who then decide whether they should invest in the further development of the products or services that emerge.
The challenge, organised in partnership with the NIHR (National Institute of Health Research) Brain Injury Healthcare Technology Cooperative, comprises two key events.
An introductory evening on Friday 3 October 2014 at the new University Technical College in Cambridge, will see participants form into teams and come up with new ideas to help solve seven key challenges.
Teams with interesting solutions will then have eight weeks to develop their ideas further, with a view to presenting them to all Mind Your Head participants as well as public sector and private investors on Friday 28 November 2014.
UK Angel Investor of the Year, Peter Cowley, who lives in Cambridge and is investment director of the Marshall of Cambridge corporate angel fund (Martlet), says Mind Your Head has the potential to generate a wide range of investment opportunities.
“Crowd-sourcing ideas for products and services for such a worthy cause is a fascinating and novel idea,” said Peter. “I am looking forward to seeing the business ideas that emerge after 3 October, particularly those that meet my investment criteria.”
Karen Bevan, Headway Cambridgeshire project manager, said: “It would be great if we could look back in a year’s time and say we had developed a product or service which really changed the lives of the thousands of people in the UK living with a brain injury.
"We thought one great way of doing this would be to enlist the help of the public, and ask them to come up with some fresh new ideas."It could be an individual, or it could be a team from a business or a school – it doesn’t matter really, as long as the solution benefits someone living with a brain injury, or helps to prevent a head injury happening in the first place.”
Headway Cambridgeshire has given participants a head start by publishing a list of challenges based on the problems faced by people with brain injury – and has challenged local people to come up with solutions.
For instance, Jules Corry uses a wheelchair after being involved in a road accident last year and has restricted mobility. He says he regularly has problems simply picking things up.
“If I drop my mobile phone it can be a real pain,” says Jules, who lives in Peterborough, and attends Headway Cambridgeshire’s hub service at the Eagle Wood Neurological Care Centre in Bretton.
“There are products out there to help me reach stuff, but they can’t be used for very heavy things or very small items, and some things – like my phone – are very hard to grasp.”
Cambridge cyclist Tom Howes highlighted another major problem in the UK – trying to persuade people, particularly teenagers, to wear a cycle helmet.
Tom, who’s now 41, was seriously injured 15 years ago when he was knocked off his bike.
He said: “Wearing a helmet almost certainly saved my life. Maybe someone could come up with a new design of bike helmet young people would be happy to put on.”
The other five challenges are equally diverse and are based on helping people with brain injury to:
- Remember how to perform basic tasks like making a cup of tea
- Quickly and easily find help and support
- Communicate emotions without speaking
- Cope with a reduced tolerance to noise – a problem for many people with a brain injury
- The final challenge involves marketing a new memory game which has been devised by people with brain injury
High profile backing for the campaign has come from former F1 racing driver and Le Mans winner Mark Blundell who said: “One million people every year attend A&E every year with a head injury; it’s the biggest cause of death and disability in people under the age of 40.
"Mind Your Head is an innovative way for the public to get together, make new friends and have fun but most of all to make a valuable contribution to society.”
For more information, and to register to get involved, go to the website: Mind Your Head
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