IPF Catalyst Challenge

Deadline: 2017-10-25
Award: $1,000,000

We’re calling all innovators, entrepreneurs, engineers, and designers who are passionate about problem solving to help eradicate this disease that has claimed countless lives.

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, irreversible and incurable lung disease that kills the same number of people every year as breast cancer.

While many are relatively unfamiliar with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), this chronic lung disease has impacted hundreds of thousands of people. In fact, IPF claims about as many lives annually as breast cancer and, at any given time, approximately 132,000 people in the United States are battling this deadly disease.

IPF patients suffer from an impaired quality of life. For those with IPF, breathing feels like trying to inhale through a coffee stirrer, and the daily burden of an archaic oxygen system forces many to remain homebound. What's more, there are substantial difficulties for IPF caregivers. Diagnosis is difficult, and takes an average of 26 months from the first appearance of symptoms to confirm that a patient has IPF. And currently, there are no apps, consistent education, or true caregiver management tools to help combat the disease. We've decided that enough is enough.

What could Artificial Intelligence and machine learning possibly do in the IPF space? What apps and tools have yet to be developed to manage daily care or oxygen issues? What hasn't been thought of yet that can help these patients and caregivers ease the burden of their disease?