The pd meds team, with the Boreas solution, won the Polish edition of the James Dyson Award Competition. Now it is time for them to compete in the international stage of the Competition.

The James Dyson Award is an international prize designed to foster a new generation of inventors who want to improve people’s lives in the broadest sense of the word with their solutions (1).

Working on a solution

Polish researchers from the pd meds team worked on the Boreas solution for over 1.5 years. During this time, they developed 10 tool prototypes, which aimed to support people with lung infections, post-surgical conditions, cancer and COPD. The device is designed to help both patients and professionals – it assists patients with rehabilitation and breathing exercises and enables professionals to monitor their patients’ therapy (2).

According to the developers, Boreas offers the possibility to exercise under the supervision of a doctor but also independently with the support of a virtual trainer. Both the patient and the doctor have access to the results of the exercises and can control the process of health improvement. Importantly, from the perspective of the device’s functionality, Boreas can be used by multiple patients thanks to the filters used, which only need to be changed before a new person starts. To motivate users to use the solution, the young researchers also did not forget to develop a gamification model built into the device (3).

Pd meds is made of four innovators:

• Piotr Falkowski (28 years old) – leader, PhD student from Warsaw University of Technology;
• Maciej Pikuliński (28 years old) – PhD student from Warsaw University of Technology;
• Basil Leczkowski (24 years old) – student at the Warsaw University of Technology;
• and Anna Pastor (29 years old) – a graduate of the Wrocław University of Technology.

Impact of innovation on society

An ageing population is expected to bring with it an increase in the number of procedures, including lung operations. Moreover, in Poland, more than 22,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer every year, and experts forecast that these figures may be increasingly high. The Boreas solution can, therefore, provide real support to the Polish health system, which lacks specialist doctors such as pulmonologists, among others (4).

After winning the national competition and receiving a prize of PLN 26,500, the team will soon be competing in the international finals. Pd meds will meet its contenders as early as 18 October, and the winning solution will be announced as 15 November.

The Boreas solution developed by the pd meds team could have a significant impact on both the domestic and potentially global medical market.

Bibliography:

1. James Dyson Award website, https://www.jamesdysonaward.org/pl-pl/home/, (accessed on September 27, 2023).
2. Warsaw University of Technology website, https://www.pw.edu.pl/Aktualnosci/Pomysl-z-PW-najlepszy-w-polskiej-edycji-Konkursu-o-Nagrode-Jamesa-Dysona, (accessed on September 27, 2023).
3. National Winner, James Dyson Award website, https://www.jamesdysonaward.org/pl-PL/2023/project/boreas/, (accessed on September 27, 2023). Boreas Wins this Year’s James Dyson Award Competition in Poland, Dyson website, https://www.dyson.pl/newsroom/nagroda-jamesa-dysona-2023-w-polsce, (accessed on September 27, 2023).