Enjoy our Healthcare Innovator Spotlight Series, brought to you in partnership with Via Innovations and ChristchurchNZ. We are proud to showcase Canterbury’s Healthcare Innovators.
This series highlights innovation and the people behind healthcare innovation in Canterbury. The 5 Innovators series is below:
Gavin Harris – Anatomical Pathologist Canterbury Laboratories
Pathologists such as Gavin Harris provide vital information to clinicians for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as cancer. Gavin discusses how cutting-edge ‘digital pathology’ combined with AI technology will assist pathology staff in their analysis of cells and tumour samples.
Maggie-Lee Huckabee – University of Canterbury
Frustration over a lack of clinical tools for people recovering from a stroke kick-started Maggie-Lee Huckabee’s journey from speech pathologist, to academic, to founder of a medical technology start-up. The ‘reluctant entrepreneur’ talks about making the most of opportunities created by the COVID pandemic, and her gratitude for support from the ‘remarkable’ Canterbury technology community.
Adam Hutchinson – Owner of oVRcome
‘Serial entrepreneur’ Adam Hutchinson developed the oVRcome virtual reality app to enable people with conditions such as anxiety disorders to access care in their own home. He talks about oVRcome’s success internationally, and how the close-knit Canterbury community allowed him to film vital reality scenes for the app, including tarantulas at the museum.
Dan Hartwell – CDHB – Co-Founder of Hartwell Simulation
Simulation exercises allow clinical teams to practice dealing with rare medical scenarios before they occur. Anaesthetist Dan Hartwell shares details of how he and his colleagues developed a compact and cost-effective simulation system that plugs into existing medical equipment and allows health professionals to practice scenarios in their own environment.
Anthony Butler – Co-Founder of MARS Bioimaging Ltd
Anthony Butler and his father Phil took ‘Big Bang Theory’ technology and used it in the development of their revolutionary portable MARS 3D colour scanner. Anthony talks about how Canterbury has been a ‘sweet spot’ for the company’s innovations and hopes that MARS will make radiology services more accessible for patients in remote communities.