Tag: social innovation

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Nouvo

August of 2016 changed the lives of my closest friend Amaury Saulsberry, who I consider to be a brother of mine. He created Nouvo shortly after his younger brother was diagnosed with a severe case of GERD, commonly known as acid reflux. It took about four months for him and his family to get the proper diagnosis, and by the time they did 80 percent of his brothers esophagus was damaged.

This led to the beginning of Nouvo. Nouvo is a healthcare tech startup that has created a smart pacifier that monitors  pH and temperature levels in infants saliva as a biomarker for acid reflux. The scope of the technology goes beyond just that as this data of the child’s vitals could potentially pinpoint many other ailments. This smart pacifier is patent.

This is our smart pacifier and integrated app

Through the University wide resources Amaury and the team were able to get act on entrepreneurial endeavors. Course in TEC, BADM, ARTD, Engineering  and even attending workshop and office hours for EIR ( Entrepreneurs In Residence) at the Research Park helped Nouvo get started. We were able to create our first working prototype with resources and skills learned here at the university.

Even now we’re finding more and more helpful resources the university has to offer. We’ve been able to accelerate our rapid prototyping with the use of Fusion 360 and the maker lab 3D printers. We’ve also upped our fabrication by utilizing the tools at the FabLab. They have a wide range of filament options, laser cutters, and milling machines. We were actually able to use the milling and 3D printing at the FabLab for the circuit board that housed our prototype. These Helped us be one of the health marathon winners this year.

To date Nouvo now has a team of six. All of whom are fellow students ranging from engineering to industrial design backgrounds. The advisory board is comprised of doctors, an FDA lawyer, financial specialist, and much more.

  • Nouvo at TechNexus

  • Nouvo at Think Chicago Roadshow

Nouvo showcasing at EoH 2019

Currently Nouvo is awaiting patent acceptance and the FDA approval process. The product is considered to be a class II device and could take upwards 9 months. During this time we are working on developing our other connected health products. We are working on acquiring additional funding that will go towards perfecting our MVP.

Links to a few of our featured articles

IL Startup Nouvo Is Making a Smart Pacifier to Diagnose Sick Infants
2019 Health Make-a-thon

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/2018-07-29/wired-amaury-saulsberry.html

https://foxillinois.com/news/local/startup-social-gives-sneak-peek-at-student-innovations


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All Final Checks Completed & Anticipation

PREPARATIONS & LOOKING AHEAD

We started this week’s class with Vishal reviewing the Make-a-thon schedule in case any of us were confused or missed the Pre-Night Event. Following that, he introduced us to Valeri, a representative from Social Innovation @ Illinois. Social Innovation @ Illinois is one of our Make-a-thon’s Gold Sponsors and is funding the appearance of our mentors from Milestone Labs during the weekend of the Make-a-thon event.

Valerie also spoke to us about an opportunity to continue our innovative ventures during school while gaining funding and several experts as resources: the iVenture Accelerator. iVenture is a start up incubator that takes the form of a 10 week internship over the summer and a seminar class for a full academic year that allows participants to further develop their startup. The Accelerator provides $10,000 of funding to the startups chosen as well as stipends for its members to stay on campus over the summer. Throughout the internship and the class portion of iVenture, supplies its entrepreneurs with funding, experts, networking opportunities, and more. My teammate, Trevor Sibby, actually went through the iVenture Accelerator with his startup, Nouvo, which I mentioned last week.

THE LAST CHECKPOINT

Once Valerie finished up her presentation, we had time to work in our teams while we, team by team, met with Milestone Labs for a final project update review and advice session. My team, Solestice, went first. During our review with Milestone, we talked through our new thinking for our prototype. While before, we were thinking of using metal spikes for the tread, we have since then moved onto the idea of using a type of material similar to what is used on winter car tires, which have incredible traction for driving on ice and snow, as the main component to our product. While we have also considered a couple other materials, such as a shape memory alloy, we will be meeting with a materials science professor soon to confirm which option would be the best to use for the Make-a-thon event. We had also considered a couple of other attachment methods aside from Velcro, such as snap buttons. Oded from Milestone actually shared a YouTube video with us which has given us another method to consider – one where the user can simply step into the tread. Milestone also pointed us in the direction of considering the whole experience of using the tread, including what happens if the user falls down, whether or not the user has to take the tread on/off when travelling outdoors/indoors, as well as a keeping in mind the wear and tear of shoes. Overall, it was a very productive and positive meeting.

Once we finished up talking to Milestone, Solestice moved onto brainstorming the types of materials we would need at the Makeathon in order to complete our prototypes. We found out that winter tires are made of a material called hydrophilic rubber, so we tried looking around for something similar. However, since none of us are science majors, we struggled a little with reading all the scientific chemical names thrown at us in our search. In the end, we decided to go with trying to use a bicycle tire as a similar material to the winter tire and explaining to the Make-a-thon judges what our ideal product would include. Next, we looked for sites where we can obtain Velcro, straps, and other methods of attaching the tread with the goal of testing these different methods during the Make-a-thon to see which is the easiest for the user to use.

We are all super excited and cannot wait for the Make-a-thon event we will be attending next weekend!