Two teams won the third edition of Avante, a program of the Chilean Navy (Armada de Chile) and Know Hub Chile that seeks to solve technology challenges posed by the Navy, which this time focused on the institution’s preventive medicine. In addition, the Academia Politécnica Naval presented a new program, “Proa I+D”, developed jointly with Know Hub Chile and aimed at Chilean researchers.
On Wednesday, May 24, the awards ceremony for the third edition of Desafío Avante, an open innovation program organized by the Chilean Navy and Know Hub Chile, was held at the Academia Politécnica Naval.
The event was attended by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Juan Andrés De La Maza, accompanied by representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Science, as well as members of the Naval High Command, Know Hub Chile, Corfo, and the Director of the Academia Politécnica Naval, Captain Fabian González.
After the competing teams presented, there were two winners: ‘Yo Me Controlo’ and ‘Amanda’.
Javier Ramírez, executive director of Know Hub Chile, said that this time they had “a happy problem,” because all the teams were very competitive, particularly the two winners, whose evaluation scores differed only minimally, which is why it was decided to award two first prizes.
“Unlike previous editions, this time we can say with much greater confidence that the real competition starts now, because they will receive a prize to carry out a development over six to eight months, at the end of which the Navy’s Health Directorate has the budget to adopt the solution that meets the Navy’s standards. That is the real prize; the Avante prize is just a boost to help them get there,” Ramírez said.
The representative of Yo Me Controlo, nurse Macarena Castro, explained that “being the winners is a very important recognition of all the work we have done, which has taken a lot of effort. It feels very good to be recognized by the Institution, with which we had no connection and whose way of working we didn’t know.”
For his part, David Vida, from the Amanda team, described the experience as “very interesting,” because at first they had certain preconceptions, as they didn’t really know the Navy’s work. “You think they are very closed institutions that are hard to access, but in the end we realized it is run by human beings just like us, who have a mission to fulfill for the country, and who have professionalism, a willingness to work with us and the openness to learn from the civilian world,” he said.
Creating technology solutions
The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Juan Andrés De La Maza, highlighted the importance of the joint work that Avante represents, and announced that the initiative will have a fourth edition. “Today we have closed a chapter of Avante 3, in which for the first time there have been two winning teams that will contribute a solution that is very important to us regarding the health of our crews. I hope that over time we can implement it,” he said.
As an institution, the Commander-in-Chief said, the Navy always seeks to engage with the community, and one of those paths is to promote the creation of technology solutions for the Chilean Navy with the collaboration of the national and international research, development and innovation ecosystem. To contribute to this task, the Academia Politécnica Naval created this third Avante initiative, aimed at finding solutions for health data capture, risk index definition and dynamic scheduling, in order to help modernize the Institution’s preventive medicine.
Javier Ramírez, executive director of Know Hub Chile, noted that this work is part of the Navy’s broader strategy to become a full member of the science, technology, knowledge and innovation ecosystem. “Avante is one of the programs the Navy is developing with this goal, and it is also part of the Continuous National Shipbuilding Plan,” he emphasized.
The “Proa I+D” program
At the event, the Academia Politécnica Naval presented a new program, “Proa I+D”, developed jointly with Know Hub Chile, which will receive proposals from researchers so they can carry out applied research and then assess the feasibility of applying for funding from the National Research and Development Agency (ANID).
The Director of the Academia Politécnica Naval, Captain Fabian González, said of the new program that “as an Academy we are always developing initiatives that allow us to connect with the civilian world and develop solutions to the Navy’s problems, and one of the mechanisms we have found is to develop those that allow us to operate within the innovation ecosystem through Avante, Proa I+D and Innovapolinav.”
In Proa I+D, the Director of the Academia Politécnica Naval explained, for researchers who have conducted or are conducting research and lack a clinical setting or a place to test their products, “the Navy offers itself so they can do this work, provided we find it interesting.”
The executive director of Know Hub Chile explained that, while running Avante, working with the teams and pursuing the challenges, they realized that some applicants sometimes came with very good ideas that were still far from becoming reality. “They weren’t entrepreneurial projects, but research and development projects, which were very good but didn’t fit in Avante. That’s where we saw an opportunity and thought of giving them a specific space, and that’s how Proa I+D was born. Now universities and research centers will be invited to use the resources available at the Navy to advance new developments and new research,” he clarified.
