Cypriot-based start-up Matakia has been announced as one of the first winners in the 2024 EIT Health Digital Health Innovation Award.
This is a new award, in collaboration with JA Europe, Europe’s largest provider of education programmes for entrepreneurship, work readiness and financial literacy. As one of the winners out of 1272 applicants, Matakia gain access to EIT Health’s mentors and coaching network to help evolve their idea.
About Matakia
Retinoblastoma is the most common childhood eye cancer, and an early diagnosis has a 95 per cent survival rate. However, if left untreated, and the cancer spreads beyond the eye through the optic nerve, the likelihood of a cure is lower, and blindness could also be a possible complication.
In Greek, matakia means ‘tiny eyes’, and co-founders Linn Persson, and Maria Witkowiak’s proposed, low-cost, solution is a children’s picture book that uses a flashlight and integrates interactive elements with informative content to simplify eye health assessments and empower parents to easily perform eye exams at home and identify potential issues sooner.
Matakia’s solution aims to raise awareness of eye cancer and encourage early eye exams in children and serves as an educational tool for parents, caregivers, and healthcare professionals, enabling the early detection of childhood eye diseases.
What the Judges said
In terms of innovation, introducing digital health in the form of reading and writing, which is something that children often do at home, is a disruptive solution, and this very early-stage prototype could contribute to the high rate of retinoblastoma survival and decrease the possibility of blindness.
The impact, if the technology proves successful, is that it can viably be used to explore other eye-related abnormalities that affect childhood. Prevention and early diagnosis of which can have an important impact on children’s lives and on systems that often can only implement reactive treatments.
https://eit.europa.eu/news-events/news/matakia-wins-eit-health-digital-innovation-award