A partnership with the Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center (GCITC), Augusta University (AU), the Advanced Technology and Development Center, and the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) brought together a diverse group of individuals for a workshop at GCITC.
ABD first highlighted the effort to accelerate medical device innovation and commercialization in our Friday issue.
In the news release announcing the event, Dr. Guido Verbeck, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at AU, said academia is a fantastic platform for launching ideas.
“But there must be an understanding of how to bring a device to market. Physicians and practitioners who are also academics are solving problems in real time, but they often lack the resources and support to get their ideas to production and commercialization,” he added.
Lynsey Steinberg, AU’s Director of Innovation, said an event focused on the medical field is part of the ecosystem at GCITC, joining academia, government, and industry. Students, faculty, and staff are looking for ways to innovate across all disciplines.
“We often see the intersections of interdisciplinary work, and it just makes so much sense here in Augusta, with five hospitals, with this massive region, with medicine and health sciences, that we look at supporting cyber, we look at supporting medical, and all of it is innovation at its core,” she told ABD.
Among the attendees was Kelsey Shull, one of the innovation specialists at the Veterans Administration (VA) Healthcare System. She said it made sense for the VA to participate, as it has nationally recognized success and a track record for medical device innovation.
“We are currently patent pending nationally and internationally with one of our devices, so we absolutely deserve a seat at the table,” she explained. “Our veterans deserve nothing short of the best, and we bring to the table an opportunity to make those advancements without having to answer to a board or having to necessarily worry about profit. We can put the true medical needs and the needs of the veteran first and foremost, even if that sometimes costs a little money.”
She said Augusta is a hidden gem of innovation, especially in the medical and healthcare sectors, and the Friday workshop was a way to leverage resources and skills from across the state.
“At my program at the VA, we say collaboration is the new competition, that when we work together, we can go farther and do more than if we’re working against each other,” she said. “We have the incredible resources and the brains at Georgia Tech. We have the incredible resources and the brains at Augusta University, here in the Cyber Center, shamelessly have to plug the VA Health Care System, as well as all of the other health care systems in the CSRA, we are a medical and health care destination town.”
Steinberg said public-private partnerships are where innovation thrives.
“Having these public-private partnerships, working with our industry partners who come in and collaborate and bring us challenges and ideas that we can provide to solve those challenges, that’s what sets the core of some of the most incredible ideas that come out of the University System of Georgia.”
She added that those ideas can lead to innovations that solve real-world problems.
