Tell us about your experience in Innovation in Action.

As public health students, we learn a lot about the problems we face and the experiences of all those involved within the system–from patients to physicians, caregivers to payers. But we rarely go out and talk directly to these individuals to really understand their greatest needs – much less think about and test possible solutions. We had hundreds of assumptions about what the problems within chronic illness management were and how to approach it, but IIA pushed us to go talk to these stakeholders to really test our assumptions. IIA also provided the framework to take our idea to reality. You can’t really put structure around entrepreneurship, but we were gently given the tools and guidance to navigate how to move forward.

How did IIA change your idea of what you wanted to do with your MPH?

Brianna is now working on Find Your Ditto full time and I am joining her when I graduate this May. But even if the venture fails tomorrow, we have learned so much from our experience that will undoubtedly help us for the rest of our careers. We left IIA with an entrepreneurial toolkit that we can apply to our own future ideas or to innovation that happens within the future organizations we work for. It has been one of the most defining programs of our time here at the University of Michigan.

Tell us about your venture. Where did it start and how has it changed?

Brianna and I met when I was originally interviewing people living with chronic illness at the very start of IIA. We formed a team and found that hundreds of other patients and caregivers nationwide also felt pervasive feelings of isolation and loneliness. With funding from SPH, we ran a coffee chat pilot connecting students living with chronic conditions to meet in-person. The success of the pilot validated many of our assumptions and launched us forward to grow our platform so that we can make more matches. The most significant thing that has changed since IIA has been our business model and we have since narrowed our initial target market. We have completed our beta product and are finalizing contracts with several Big 10 Universities to launch FYD as a resource for their students. We have additionally begun partnerships with Wayne State University for a peer-reviewed study to measure patients’ psychosocial and physical outcomes after use of our platform.

Why do you think it’s important to innovate in public health?

Innovation paves the future and when we specifically innovate in healthcare, we have the opportunity to dramatically impact the quality of life of a diverse range of individuals. With healthcare shifting more towards value-based medicine, we have the opportunity to really create ways for consumers to take control of their health and ease the system burden. And to do that we need more talented individuals who can bring that entrepreneurial mindset and create that change

— Learn more: www.findyourditto.com

Tell us about your experience in Innovation in Action.

Innovation in Action was the highlight of my graduate school experience. When I first became involved in the program my first semester, I had no idea that this would be the program that launched my dream career.

It started as a collective passion for figuring out a solution to alleviate food insecurity. To begin the innovation process, we learned we first really needed to understand the problem. We therefore conducted a countless amount of interviews with people from academia, non-profit, industry, government, and most importantly, community members who suffer from the issue. This process of customer discovery and fully understanding the pain points is a process we still use to this day to continue to iterate. Not only did IIA give us the initial momentum to launch, but provided us with a long lasting set of tools and processes to continue to be successful.

How did IIA change your idea of what you wanted to do with your MPH?

I would not be in the role I am today – dream career directly after graduating by being a founder and CEO of a fast growing social enterprise working to increase access to healthy food – had it not been for Innovation in Action. I went into grad school knowing that I wanted to combine business and public health to make a large impact and alleviate health disparities, however, I had no idea how I would be able to do this. Luckily, I came across Innovation in Action – an innovation competition designed to do exactly what I was looking to do: create long lasting solutions to critical public health problems.

Tell us about your venture. Where did it start and how has it changed?

Cart’s mission is to increase access to health by facilitating a reliable transportation network between communities and the businesses that serve them. We originally started by focusing on lack of access to healthy food, but have learned that the greater lack of access to mobility in general is a much larger public health problem. However, at the moment, we are still focused on coordinating ride share rides to get transportation-limited individuals to well-stocked grocery stores. We are looking to start in this specialized space first to establish the model, but in the future hope to provide transportation to any health-enabling entity.

Why do you think it’s important to innovate in public health?

As the very definition of public health involves promoting and protecting the health of entire populations, public health has arguably the most to gain from innovation. If we can create innovative ways to promote prevention, improve community health, and detect and control diseases, we can positively impact billions of lives and solve the world’s largest, most complex issues.

— Learn more: www.cartrides.com

Tell us about your experience in Innovation in Action.

I discovered my passion for breastfeeding promotion, research, and entrepreneurship when I joined IIA to work with an interdisciplinary team on current public health problems. My team—LiquidGoldConcept— won the competition for our innovative breast pump design. I believe that the guided workshops and opportunities to collaborate with graduate students and faculty across departments is the primary reason for IIA’s success in helping non-entrepreneurs develop skills in social entrepreneurship. Before IIA, I didn’t know that I could be an entrepreneur because I don’t fit the “stereotype”: I am a woman with no engineering, tech, or programming background.

How did IIA change your idea of what you wanted to do with your MPH?

I attribute my current interests and career goals almost exclusively to my participation in IIA.  Today, I can confidently describe myself as a breastfeeding expert, lactation biology researcher, and social entrepreneur committed to a career in perinatal medicine. I recently had the realization that I am pursuing the MD/PhD so that I can make a bigger impact as a social entrepreneur–not the other way around. My approach to product development, company leadership, and strategic direction is rooted in a deep understanding of the value and need for translation of evidence-based research to technology, services, and programs.

Tell us about your venture. Where did it start and how has it changed?

In 2014, I went to study human breast milk donation in Brazil. I met a mother who was crying because her right breast was twice the size of her left, with painful, golfball-sized lumps inside. The pediatrician showed her a simple breast massage technique; within ten minutes her breast began to soften and we were able to latch her baby and breastfeed successfully. It was then that I realized that a breast pump could not solve the most common problems in breastfeeding. I called the LiquidGoldConcept founders and, together, we decided that our mission would focus on education and empowerment. Today, we are about to start selling that product to teach health providers about the basics of breastfeeding management and are developing another: MomKit, a mobile health app that teaches parents breastfeeding techniques using Pixar-style animation.

Why do you think it’s important to innovate in public health?

Public health entrepreneurship is a difficult field because the financial return on investment is nowhere near that of the traditional venture-capital business model. Despite the massive potential social returns, breastfeeding education, support, and promotion has been largely ignored by private and public innovation investors. I’ve learned over the last few years that no matter what kind of entrepreneur you are, the following three things are most important: a pathologic passion, unending optimism, and a multi-disciplinary, committed team.

— Learn more at: liquidgoldconcept.com/