AGFA Competition Reflection
AGFA challenge
On Friday, November 12th I received a letter from Greg Overholt that began with the following:
Hi Michael, (apologies if you have gotten this email twice),
Your submission has officially been selected as one of the 5 finalist in the 2010 AGFA Healthcare Innovation Challenge! The judges were very impressed by your submission and on behalf of SOS, AGFA HealthCare, and the event sponsors, we’d like to invite you to compete in the finalist weekend taking place next weekend in Waterloo, Ontario (Friday, November 19th to Sunday, November 21st).
I was completely dumbfounded in shock. When submitting my proposal, I had originally never imagined winning first place. But perhaps with a bit of luck and great help from the K-NET staff, I was off to Waterloo to compete against 5 other great teams for the top prize of a $3000 scholarship and a flight to Belgium, or a summer job with AGFA.
So on Wednesday, I travelled from Fort Severn to Sioux Lookout, and then on the Thursday from Sioux Lookout to Thunder Bay, then to Toronto Island Airport. I was happy to see my parents for the first time in months, but I had to spend time preparing for competition. Friday came, and I was whisked away to the Waterloo Inn (a beautiful hotel). The first night we had the opportunity to sit down with a group of mentors after the introductory dinner to help refine my proposal. With the help of Morgan Seele from AGFA, Sasan Adibi from RIM, Gary Higgs from St. Mary’s Hospital, and Michele Campbell from Sunlife Financial, I received amazing feedback that helped me sculpt my written proposal into a Powerpoint presentation.
The next day, it was zero hour. With judges who were leaders in the healthcare and IT industry watching and critiquing each of the presentations, I was extremely nervous. Other presentations from Waterloo, Brock and Laurier were spectacular, incorporating concepts of cloud computing and social networking between patients and health care workers. When it was my turn to present, I spoke from experience – from both my travels to the different communities as well as my interactions with community members. When I finished, I was glad to see the interest generated in the north by the judge’s questions. As I returned to my seat, it was tough to sit still through the adrenaline still pumping through my body.
When the prizes were announced later that evening, it was nerve-racking to hear the results from last to first. When I got selected as the winner, I was in shock. I never imagined winning first place. As I was sitting down waiting for my turn to present, I was in awe of the in-depth proposals that came from other universities such as Waterloo and Brock. But one thing that remained constant was my desire to fairly portray the communities that I had been working for the past two months. After I presented and the Q and A period arrived, it was difficult to paint the whole picture, to tell them that communities weren’t just places with an overly high prevalence of diabetes mellitus, or a lack of bandwidth. Instead, it was place where many bright individuals and ideas came from. As only a visitor to the north, I have a very limited perspective of the struggles of both being a native and living in a rural and remote environment. I can only describe and provide my opinion and experiences, but I feel that the best answers are given and should be presented from the community level.
Overall, it was a great learning experience from AGFA. Not only did I make friends from other universities, but also I got extremely valuable feedback that could help shape DiabeTEXTs into a plausible, effective solution for the North in the near future. In addition, it helped promote attention to the communities and hopefully with the connections I made at this competition, we can look forward to positive and sustainable partnerships with Ehealth, financial, and IT organizations in the future.