Sidra Medicine joins QRDI Council’s Qatar Open Innovation Programme

Qatar Research, Development, and Innovation (QRDI) Council, in partnership with Sidra Medicine has announced the launch of a new healthcare collaboration under its flagship Qatar Open Innovation (QOI) programme. Sidra Medicine, a specialist women’s and children’s hospital and the QRDI Council will use the QOI platform to develop a device to detect the severity of asthma attacks in children and help guide treatment.Prof Khalid al-Ansari, chair of Emergency Medicine at Sidra Medicine said: “Asthma is a very prevalent disease in children across the world, and every year our Emergency Department sees thousands of children coming in with acute asthma attacks. We are hoping that the QOI programme will make our concept into reality by developing a device that can help with both fast assessment as well as guide the treatment approach. We are aiming for our innovation to result in an easy-to-use device that can be used at home by parents as well as by healthcare providers.”Sidra Medicine is inviting proposals from local and international companies including SMEs, and corporates, for technologies that can provide diagnostic monitoring for paediatric asthma patients. It is looking to co-develop an innovative, easy-to use-device with software support to enable the rapid assessment of asthmatic patients and recommended interventions to prevent acute attacks.Haya al-Ghanim, RDI Programme director at QRDI Council, stated: “ Through this programme, we aim to address major global challenges, and with high prevalence, asthma is an increasingly pressing health concern. QOI operates at the intersection of technological innovation and research, and we continue to play a major role in enhancing innovation in Qatar by providing a platform for opportunity owners across key sectors to identify their innovation needs and goals and connect with leading minds across the world for bespoke solutions to identified needs.”The Qatar Open Innovation programme is a call on local and global innovators to create, in Qatar, technological innovations which address the needs of large local enterprises and government agencies. It connects innovators from startups, SMEs, and corporates to opportunity owners who can collaborate to pilot innovative solutions to meet their unique needs and further their business goals. Known as the first-of-its-kind programme in the country that aims to support innovation in Qatar and further expand the country’s growing ecosystem, QOI was launched earlier this year with partners Hassad Foods and Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation. The first set of innovation calls saw participation from local and international innovators who submitted 197 proposals that addressed opportunities in water, energy, and agriculture.Future sets of QOI calls will soon be released as QRDI Council continues to work closely with large local enterprises and government agencies across the five priority areas defined by QRDI 2030 to identify opportunities where innovation can drive collaboration across sectors and promote economic growth and productivity.