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The 3rd “Long-Teng-Wei-Xiao IOB Entrepreneurship Competition”—The NCKU Team Takes the Biggest Prize.

Edited/Images by NCKU News Center, NCKU Research and Services Center

With the approach of the aging society, the demand for medical and long-term care for the elderly has increased. The Department of Industrial Design of NCKU, Department of Biomedical Engineering of NCKU and Department of Medical Medicine and Rehabilitation of NCKUH teamed up to develop the “Smart Health Promotion Service System” with the goals of being intelligent, game-based, and customizable to provide a variety of intensive rehabilitation services that allow users to perform effective and fun remote rehabilitation at home, and won the silver prize (the biggest prize for the year) of the 3rd “Long-Teng-Wei-Xiao IOB Entrepreneurship Competition”, and received NT$1 million in venture funds.

 

The “Long-Teng-Wei-Xiao IOB Entrepreneurship Competition” was organized by the Acer Foundation. The NCKU Team was led by Professor Lin, Yan-cheng and Professor Chen, Jian-xu from the Department of Industrial Design, Professor Chen, Peng-ting from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Dr. Lian, Wei-zhi from Department of Medical Medicine and Rehabilitation of NCKUH, with students Zhang, Qian-xiang, Chen, Pin-jun, Liu, Bo, Wu, Meng-ting Wu, and Wu, Pei-yun from the Department of Engineering and Wang, Guan-zhong from the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

 

Zhang, Qian-xiang, PhD student of Department of Engineering, stated that the team has conducted initial market research on the results of the research and development, and many interested parties are highly interested in the results; the team will continue to research and hope to gain recognition in more competitions, and the prize money will also be used to establish start-up companies. In addition to collaborating with National Cheng Kung University Hospital, the team has also signed a letter of intent with Kaohsiung Medical University, as well as subcontractors and long-term care facilities, to conduct clinical trials to see if the system can really improve users’ quality of life. In the future, we will expand the development of more diversified rehabilitation systems for upper limbs and other diseases.

 

The team member, Wang, Guan-zhong, a PhD student of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, emphasized that the “Smart Health Promotion Service System” is an integrated solution that combines hardware and software. Users wear a knee brace kit equipped with electromyography (EMG) sensor kit and perform three of the most common clinical rehabilitation exercises, such as knee extension, foot dorsiflexion and metatarsal flexion, interacting with a nostalgic game developed by the team, and each action is recorded by the sensor and the relevant data is sent back to the back office in real time, which is then interpreted or evaluated by the physician through artificial intelligence technology. The doctors check the patient’s exercise status twice or three times a week, and if there is a significant difference, they can adjust the training content directly through the platform, such as the frequency of rehabilitation.

 

The PhD student, Zhang, Qian-xiang, pointed out that elderly people would find repetitive rehabilitation actions boring and their motivation is not high. This system, with its nostalgic and game-based design, can also evoke users’ memories and resonate with them, so they will not easily get bored. Currently all the scenes are mainly based in Taiwan. Depending on different rehabilitation actions, different scenes and challenges are designed. For example, in the 1960s Hayashi Department Store scene in Tainan, you can see early packaging, glass cans, etc. To complete the challenge, users are required to clean up trash cans thrown by visitors by kicking the cans to get to the goal of knee stretching.

 

The PhD student, Wang, Guan-zhong, expressed his hope that when the system is launched in the future, the price will be cheaper than general rehabilitation equipment, and that it will be paired with different service models to provide professional remote online counseling and assessment by physicians to save patients the time needed to queue up in the hospital every month for rehabilitation, as well as to introduce home care services and cooperate with physiotherapists and occupational therapists. The award is a kind of affirmation and motivation, and we hope the research results can be commercialized as soon as possible, “We don’t expect to make much money, but hope to create more value for the society”.

 

Professor Lin, Yan-cheng of the Department of Industrial Design pointed out that the aging society is approaching, and the team is developing home-based telemedicine in order to help the elderly or those who really need rehabilitation services.

 

Another member of the team, Professor Chen, Peng-ting from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is a frequent winner of the entrepreneurship competition, and last year led the NCKU Team to win the Gold (First) Prize and Silver (Second) Prize of “Long-Teng-Wei-Xiao IOB Entrepreneurship Competition”. As for the entrepreneurship competition, she is “interested in participating and even more interested in winning,” she says. The secret to achieving such success is to “target the real needs of the market with a viable business model.”

 

The predecessor of the “Long-Teng-Wei-Xiao IOB Entrepreneurship Competition” is the Long-Teng-Wei-Xiao Entrepreneurship Competition that started in 2006. With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), the competition was transformed in 2018. In the past three competitions, the NCKU Team has performed brilliantly and won 1 Gold Award (First Prize), 2 Silver Awards (Second Prize), 1 Bronze Award (Third Prize) and 4 Honorable Mentions.

 

 

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The NCKU Team won the Silver Award in the 3rd “Long-Teng-Wei-Xiao IOB Entrepreneurship Competition”.

 

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NCKU Professors and students teamed up to participate in the 3rd “Long-Teng-Wei-Xiao IOB Entrepreneurship Competition”.

 

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The NCKU Team won the Silver Prize in the 3rd “Long-Teng-Wei-Xiao IOB Entrepreneurship Competition”.
The organizer, Chairman of Acer Foundation, Shi, Zhen-rong (from left), presented the award to team members Zhang, Qian-xiang and Wang, Guan-zhong.

 

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“Smart Health Promotion Service System” - A knee brace kit is used with the game, allowing the user to repeat the rehabilitation movements along with the game.

 

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A knee brace kit equipped with an electromyography (EMG) sensor kit records the trajectory and sends the relevant data back to the back office in real time.

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