Innovation Days, also known as I-Days, promote health innovation among university students through dozens of one-day and two-day programmes held in academic institutions around Europe. Students from all academic areas receive an introduction to practical health innovation tools and compete in teams to tackle real-life health challenges posed by EIT Hhttps://eithealth.eu/programmes/i-days/ealth, local organisations, private corporations or start-ups.

The winning team of each i-Day will attend the Winners’ Event in Budapest, a final competition that unites students from around Europe. A €1000 prize fund (with support from Takeda) will be shared across the winning three teams:

  • 1st prize €600 (per team)
  • 2nd prize €240
  • 3rd prize €160

Each member of the the winning team will also receive an iPhone 15, kindly sponsored by the HSE Technology and Transformation unit. We welcome students from all disciplines, and the winners of the Dundalk I-days will benefit from 6 weeks support form EIT Health on their solution. Students can register to attend HERE . i-Days are accessible to all undergraduate and postgraduate students with an interest in healthcare innovation. You do not need any prerequisite skills or prior experience in innovation, entrepreneurship or healthcare. There are no academic requirements and students from all disciplines and departments are welcome to join!

The I-Day will occur on the afternoon of October 15th and all-day on 16th at DkIT (PJ Carrolls Building) and will include students from across all disciplines. The event is managed by The Connected Health & Wellbeing Cluster at DkIT in partnership with dConnect Innovation Hub, the Regional Development Centre, and  the relevant academic departments.

The Themes of the Dundalk I-Day is ‘Narcolepsy’.

What Is Narcolepsy? Narcolepsy is a chronic neurologic condition, which means that it involves nerve cells and chemicals in the brain. With narcolepsy, the brain is not able to control sleep-wake cycles normally. The symptoms can make it hard to do everyday tasks and may impact home, school, or work. See What Is Narcolepsy — Narcolepsy Ireland; Narcolepsy is a disease which is highly incapacitating and which is poorly understood by both the public and most professionals. It is massively under‐diagnosed or very often misdiagnosed. In general, persons with narcolepsy (PWN) comprise a highly neglected community of sufferers.”

Students can register to attend HERE. Prior registration is obligatory.

Please contact breanndan.casey@dkit.ie if you have any queries, or you are an academic or industry partner looking to collaborate on I-Days.

“i-Days gives an opportunity to people coming from different backgrounds to get together. Multidisciplinarity makes a complete difference, we we’re used to working with people from the same backgrounds. Meeting different people allows you to solve challenges in a different approach” – Kevin Leandro, University of Coimbra PhD student, Gene Therapies for Neurodegenerative Diseases 2021 i-Days Winner

i-Days focus on innovation and entrepreneurship in healthcare. The goal is to equip all participating students with practical tools, skills training and confidence in innovation, design thinking and pitch coaching.