The 16th National Innovation Award, sponsored by the Foundation's Biotechnology Medical Technology Policy Research Center, was recently held in the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Hall. This award encompassed “Enterprise Innovation Group,” “Academic Research Innovation Group,” “Clinical Innovation Group,” and “Startup Group.” The purpose of promoting the National Innovation Awards platform is to hope that the technology in the scientific research community with a new venture niche and clinical application value can be transformed and added with value for commercialization through upstream and downstream convergence and cross-field integration. The National Innovation Awards have significant benefits for enterprises to set industry benchmarks, for academic research institutions to have an important opportunity to link industrial commercialization, and for clinical teams to highlight the intensive achievements of medical services. The teams that stood out were all leaders in various fields.
【Associate Professor Yu-Chun Du (second from left) of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, won the 16th National Innovation Award for Science and Research Innovation Awards】
Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology has achieved fruitful results in the National Innovation Awards this year and in various fields of medical materials. Prof. Du’s team of the Department of Electrical Engineering won the Academy Research Innovation Award with their work "Innovative Wearable Maternal Care and Fetal Warning Device." This product can instantly and objectively record the signals of contractions, fetal movements and fetal heart rate, write into the interpretation principles of clinical standard, timely remind clinical care staff to pay attention, and effectively reduce the risk of interpretation. This device introduces the AI intelligent classification method. Through special neural network-like architecture and sequence analysis technology, it links together the signal patterns that are difficult to classify with the possibility of fetal distress, thereby obtaining feasibility of clinical trials and patents from many other countries. The “Innovative Smart Hearing Aid” by the team directed by Prof. Yi-Feng Liu of the Department of Electrical Engineering won the Clinical Innovation Award, which is an AI vocal separation system for cocktail party effects created by beamforming and computer vision technology. It has successfully created prototype products and put them into practical use. In view of clinical experience, the potential for its future commercialization is considerable.
【Assistant Professor Yi-Feng Liu (left) of the Department of Electrical Engineering of and Associate Professor Yu-Chun Du (right) of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, won the 16th National Innovation Award for Clinical Innovation】
The team of Prof. Yan-Ting Chen, Prof. Ji-Zhe Huang, and Prof. Chun-Ru Hou from the Department of Electrical Engineering won two awards for their academic research innovation. Their “Cognitive Detection and Emotion Expressing System of Nostalgic Experience” won the National Innovation Award in the 15th Scientific Research Innovation Group in 2018. This year they won the Innovation Award of the 16th Research and Innovation Group. This award-winning work has an evaluation of cognitive and educational video game software. The main axis of development is based on the clinical cognitive evaluation function, with localized nostalgic content as the theme and customized design as the main axis of game development. This year, they further built a cloud database and combine AI analysis to include a number of assessment functions, such as the living ability of the elderly. Another one is the "Active Smart Monitoring and Training System for the Ability of the Elderly at Home or in Institutions." This award-winning work uses images to record the user’s gait, observe and monitor the user’s gait, and combine it with AI analysis. The technology aims to provide important indicators for early diagnosis of dementia, and the system also provides guidance light sources to achieve training functions. On the other hand, this system can also be used in the home or public environment. When an emergency occurs, the function of guiding the source of light or the sound of the loudspeaker can guide the evacuation in the correct direction for the user.
【A group photo of the winners in the 16th National Innovation Award】
Deng-Maw Lu, President of Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said that the development of the overall medical material industry must be based on the needs of hospital clinical practice in order to avoid wrongdoings. The university's resources are actively invested in the training of students' practical ability in order to cultivate students' strength and cultivate top talents. With dedication to the integration of research teams and the development and application of AI technology, and with the self-positioning to being the "university of Science and Technology as the best partner for industries," STUST has had solid practical experience with Chi Mei Medical Center, Chiayi Branch of Taichung Rongmin General Hospital, and many other units, creating brilliant achievements.
【Associate Professor Ji-Zhe Huang (first from left) and Assistant Professor Chun-Ru Hou (first from right) of the Department of Electrical Engineering won the 16th National Innovation Award for Research and Innovation Awards.】
【A List of awards that Southern Taiwan Science and Technology University won】