From the Microsoft Tech Community Blog: Since winning the trophy in 2020, Hollo has been hard at work expanding their business and growing their team. We chatted to Co-founder and CEO, Cameron van Breda, to see how Hollo’s grown across the past year. As a smart AI-powered preventative platform, Hollo’s app aims to improve individual mental health by integrating Machine Learning with suggestive diagnosis, therapy, and continual monitoring.
“{We’ve} been working on researching our AI technology further as well as growing our team and product. We've continued to work with local mental health NGOs and professionals to get the app and supporting web-app to be more polished over time.” Cameron shared the team’s 3 biggest achievements from 2020, which include: growing their team to a group of 10 (including data scientists, developers, psychologists, and interns), developing his personal management skills, and securing more business alliances for future projects.
The team also launched a new business under Hollo this year, Blossom, targeted towards enhancing women’s wellbeing. “Blossom was {our} way of testing how we can take the data we'll have on our users and give them more value and bring them closer together as a community. Our team thought this would be a great experience to bring impact to a space that is really important. Blossom specifically targets helping {women} feel better…whilst building infrastructure as a social enterprise to bring impact to young women with workshops and community events around wellbeing in general.”
As part of their prize for winning the World Championship, the team also had the opportunity to meet with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, earlier this year to receive mentorship and advice. The top takeaway for Hollo? “We took the chance to ask Satya for some feedback on a proposed research collaboration with the Microsoft Research departments that focus on AI. Our vision is to connect researchers from Microsoft, Hollo, and the University of Hong Kong, to create a breeding ground of innovation and application of AI for good. We felt like the values of Microsoft in using AI for increasing accessibility in Healthcare aligned with our goals, and so we opened the door for shared value creation.”
Tremor Vision is a web-based tool that uses Microsoft Azure Custom Vision to enable physicians to detect early onset Parkinson’s disease and quantitatively track patients’ progress throughout a prescribed treatment plan. How? With spirals. Learn more about Tremor Vision on the Microsoft Tech Community Blog.
-2018 World Champions, team smartARM, recently shared their project with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
-2016 team AMANDA spoke at WE DAY Toronto in October 2016 along with Head of Microsoft Canada, Janet Kennedy, providing inspiration to over 23000 teenagers. They’ve also been invited to participate in numerous conferences and events like the International Conference of anti-bullying practices 2016 and the TEDxUniversityofPiraeus 2017.
-2016 competitor Petros Psyllos is recognized by American and Polish Forbes in the top 30 brightest young inventors under 30 in Poland, and by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review as one of 10 brightest young inventors in Poland. He’s received over 17 main awards at national and international level in the field of invention.
-2015 Global Citizenship winners, Opaque Media have received interest from NASA to partner on their Virtual Reality interactive space training platform, among other projects.
-2014 winners Eyenaemia met with Bill Gates to share their anemia diagnosis project.
-2008 competitors Where Is My Shuttle received seed funding of $853K (R12million) in 2015, then $1.56 million (R22 million) in 2016 from Goodwell Ventures as well as Horizon Ventures and the Omidyar Network, which is a philanthropic investment firm created by eBay's founder.
-Some competitors have gone on to develop successful careers at Microsoft, including 2016 World Finalist Alyssa Ong who’s now a Microsoft Technology Evangelist, and World Finalist Li Jung Chiu, now a Microsoft Audience Evangelism Manager.
Eyenaemia sharing their project with Bill Gates, 2014
smartARM with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 2019
For their 2019 Imagine Cup project, Finderr created an Artificial Intelligence app solution to help visually impaired individuals find lost objects through their phones. Since competing, Finderr has continued working on their project, added new members to their team, and recently launched their iOS app in the App Store.
2018 World Finalists iCry2Talk have also continued to work on their app to translate a baby’s cry, making it available to download and giving numerous presentations since competing, including a TEDXAUTH talk. 2018 World Champions, team smartARM, had the opportunity to share their Machine Learning powered robotic prosthetic hand with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
2016 competitor Petros Psyllos is recognized by American and Polish Forbes in the top 30 brightest young inventors under 30 in Poland. He’s received over 17 main awards at national and international level in the field of invention, and also won a Microsoft Research Special Award.
These are just a few examples out of hundreds of other competitors who continue to innovate, inspire, and impact every day. We’re so glad the Imagine Cup was a part of their journey to make a difference with tech.
📹 Click the image above watch 2020 World Finalists, Team Syrinx, share why they believe all students should try competing in Imagine Cup.
📹 Click the image above watch 2020 World Champions, Team Hollo, share what it means to innovate for the future and how Imagine Cup can help you get started.
📹 Click the image above watch 2020 World Finalists, Team Tremor Vision, share their advice on finding an idea worth pursuing.