Last Wednesday NYU community members came together to hear the winning teams of the first-ever Healthcare Makerthon challenge share what they learned as first-time entrepreneurs. A cross-disciplinary initiative between the School of Medicine and the Entrepreneurial Institute, Healthcare Makerthon set out to identify opportunities to improve healthcare, facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration, and launch new ventures.

Over the past six months, the multi-disciplinary teams comprised of members from five NYU schools and colleges–physicians, nurses, dietitians, data scientists, business and engineering students–leveraged their areas of expertise to tackle pressing healthcare problems.

Four teams presented their entrepreneurial journeys and how customer feedback shaped their ventures' growth trajectory. Check out brief descriptions of the teams:

SyncMD is developing a tool that curates literature and evidence-based guidelines relevant to specific patients health history. Team: Amy Deipolyi, Zachary Kurtz, Christopher Morley, and Ariele Faber.

TelleMe is creating simple yet innovative solutions to address key trigger points of alarm fatigue. Frank Volpicelli, Gabriela Lopez and Amitesh Sah.

Savita Tech utilizes emerging UV-C LED technology to clean electronic and medical devices to combat hospital acquired infections. Team: Casey Clark, Yang Wang, Martina Bradic, and Jeff Chen.

VirtuCare is an interdisciplinary virtual care coordination platform designed to improve health outcomes and reduce operational inefficiencies for chronically ill patients and providers. Team: Lisa Ganguzza, Mary Jo Vetter, Karyn Jonas, and Christine Mavaro.

Special thanks to Julio Corredor, Director of Worldwide Innovation at Pfizer, Bryan Spielman, Senior Vice President at Medidata and Jennifer van der Meer, Founder and CEO of Reason Street for serving as judges of the final presentations.

After the presentations, Savita Tech was selected as the winner of the grand prize of $5000 to advance their venture, and runner-up, VirtuCare team took home copies of 'The Startup Owner's Manual' by Steve Blank, a near-encyclopedic guide that unlocks the secrets to startup success and is on every entrepreneur's must read list.

The evening concluded with all four teams energized to continue working on their startup ventures with the support of NYU Entrepreneurial Institute and Blackstone LaunchPad coaches, taking full advantage of the entrepreneurial ecosystem at NYU. Stay tuned for updates on the next Healthcare Makerthon.