The innovators leading the charge in our new normal

As we brace for impact in our post COVID-19 world, we prepare ourselves for an abundance of new innovations, discoveries and ideas ushered in as a response to the pandemic and its global aftershocks.

Fundamentally, human engagement and socialization has changed and the nature of how we interact in everyday life has been upended. How are we hoping to solve the big issues instigated, and highlighted, by COVID that are inevitably shaping our future and who are the innovators, companies and changemakers we’ll remember leading this charge?

As part of Citytv’s Our City Tonight’s Inside Business segment tailored to showcase solutions to COVID-19, 3DQue and healthQb, two entrepreneurship@UBC ventures, shared how they are contributing to the transformation of our world as we emerge into what will ultimately become our new normal.

Watch their segments, below.

3DQue

An excellent example of a company stepping up to bat during COVID-19? 3DQue. Led by

Co-founder and CEO Steph Sharp, the 3D printing company and entrepreneurship@UBC venture was able to design and produce parts for COVID PPE within a matter of days, printing pieces ranging from ear savers for face masks to avoid chafing to testing swabs at the request of the Federal Government. With no time to waste, they partnered with another entrepreneurship@UBC (alumni) venture, ChopValue, working out of their microfactory (as seen in the segment) to collaborate on making face shields for front line workers.

In addition to this, 3DQue has been able to leverage their suite of machinery to produce critical parts for local industry, feeding supply shortages as global supply chains wane in the wake of the pandemic. This action has not only demonstrated the future of the 3D printing industry, however, shows the potential radical shifts the economy is moving towards in terms of filling supply chains at home, simultaneously lessening dependence on industry abroad.

Much of the innovation baked in 3DQue’s success is due to 3DQue Co-Founder and Chief of Innovation, Mateo Pekic, who, whilst still in secondary school, invented a means of 3D printing that was entirely automated, enabling their in-house systems to print 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their on-demand service enables not only the quick printing of tens of thousands of parts at scale, but the ability to iterate on the design and optimization of said products, avoiding mass orders that go to waste, flexing a sustainable component to their business model.

Learn more about 3DQue on their website, here or listen to the fourth episode of our podcast, evolution, to hear from 3DQue CEO Steph Sharp on how they are leading the manufacturing revolution.

healthQb

A health IT startup, healthQB has developed novel software to manage pain recovery by connecting end users and their data with allied health care professionals resulting in a revolutionary perspective of one’s health. Their system allows users to input subjective data through their wearable technology to be analyzed and evaluated by health care professionals, designed to uncover the root cause of their problem. Developed for remote-patient monitoring, their system has the potential to transform tele-health and healthcare more broadly, providing solutions for social distancing during the pandemic and for our ongoing new normal.

“We assess people’s autonomic nervous system by using wearable technology, and then we use this information to work with allied health care practitioners so they can help clients improve their health” says healthQB (aka health “quarterback”) founder, Guy Davis.

healthQB’s solution differs from other wearables or technology by providing context around the biopsychosocial aspects of health. Other devices or services typically focus on one of these three (biological, psychological or social) with a heavy emphasis on patient symptoms, bypassing the other areas that have a connected impact on one’s overall health and wellbeing. Clinical Health Leader, Greg Elliot, says: “If you only look at health that way, you are only dealing with one silo and not dealing with the whole picture”.

Currently, the team has just launched their beta product and is working on their commercially scalable product which they hope to bring to market in early fall.

Find out more about healthQb, here

Do you have an idea or innovation you want to move to impact? Applications are now open for our Lab2Launch and CORE venture building streams! Apply on our site by August 10th.

entrepreneurship@UBC propels UBC innovations out into the world through venture creation, providing UBC students, researchers, faculty members, alumni and staff with the resources, networks, and funding they need to succeed.