Doctoral Program in Digital Media project awarded in the Astellas Oncology C3 Prize

The Astellas Oncology C3 Prize, which had its second edition in 2017, is a challenge to inspire innovative ideas in improving cancer patient care.
They received more than 160 applications worldwide, from which they selected five finalists who presented their projects at the Union for International Cancer Control World Cancer Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City: Kevin Bambury of ONCOassist; Howard Isenstein of Care Progress; Cory Kidd of Catalina Health; MindBytes’ Charlotte Vander Stichele; and Hernâni Oliveira, from University of Porto, with the project HOPE that would win the Grand Prix. The winner received a $ 50,000 scholarship and the remaining finalists $ 12,500, all gaining access to MATTER, a health innovation community that will help implement the projects.
The HOPE application, from the student of the PhD Program in Digital Media of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto was born in 2013, when the UP researcher was developing his master’s thesis on Oncology at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of Abel Salazar (ICBAS) and IPO. It aims to help children hospitalized in the pediatric ward of oncology and provide information on the process of treatment of the disease and seeks to address two main difficulties of hospitalized children: anxiety and sedentary lifestyle. It is currently an application also designed for parents, helping them to search for credible sources of information.