PHOTOS: The 1st MDAton In Israel: MDA Presents: Start-Up To Save Lives

(PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE)

Last Friday, concluded our first “MDAton”, for the development of life saving technologies for Magen David Adom, in cooperation with the Afeka Engineering College. Among the projects at the “MDAton”: a smart drone for the treatment of MCI events, an easy mobility chair that allows lowering patients down the stairs with the help of only one other person an augmented reality for training.

Last Friday, Magen David Adom in collaboration with the Afeka College of Engineering in Israel held their first “MDAton” ton to develop life-saving technologies. As part of the “MDAton” technology, product and content professionals gathered to work on emergency medicine technology projects. The “MDAton” participants were divided in to small teems, each working on a solution to a life-saving problem.

About 60 people participated in the “MDAton”. Among them were MDA volunteers and workers, mechanical engineers, medical engineers, electrical engineers, industrial and management engineers, robotics experts, engineering students, medics and paramedics, doctoral students in medical sciences and doctors. All teams developed prototypes for technologies that will lead to shortening the response time of MDA teams, as well as developing new training methods. Yuval Eran, a paramedic at MDA and a medical engineering student at the Afeka College, was recruited. Thanks to his persuasion the Afeka’s management provided the engineering and physical infrastructures and enabling the “MDAton” to hold its events in their campus. During the conference, MDA provided the participants with an overview of the technological means currently in place in the organization and the rescue vehicles that are it uses today.

Additionally, Afeka provided them with laboratories, equipment and staff. The “MDAton” was accompanied by MDA and Afeka mentors who gave tailwind to all competing teams and answered technical and professional questions.

“MDAton”s winning team were chosen by a team of judges composed of MDA Vice President Prof. Moshe Papa, MDA Director General Deputy – Community Dr. Eli Yaffe, MDA Paramedic Yael Kadman, Vice President of Development at Afeka College Mr. Alon Barnea, Chairman of the Afeka College Student Association Raanan Kelner, a student of medical engineering.

Among the projects that were presented, ‘Training wheels 8150′ took 1st place. Batel Segal, Or Ben Yair, Perach Abutbul, Oriel Valeniak, Gili Vinograd, Daniel Shilo and Itamar Rabinshteyn. They designed a modular system to be installed on existing ambulance chairs that will allow ambulance crews to safely lower a patient down a staircase using 1 EMT as opposed to a minimum of 2 currently.

2nd place was taken by team MDAR, Shy Raanan, Nitzan Golovinsky, Urial Golan, Yonatan Gedalia, Ilya Altschuler and Ely Hirschberg. They designed an augmented reality training system that utilizes low-cost dolls in order to allow MDA crews nationwide to enhance their skills even out of the classroom.

3rd place was taken by team MCI Drone. Omer Perry, Assaf Cohen, Bat Dror Lugasi, and Omer Effrat. They designed a drone equipped with a video camera and artificial intelligence that will autonomously map the scene of a mass casualty incident and provide preliminary information about the number, location, and condition of patients on scene.

Mr. Alon Barnea, Vice President of Development at AFEKA Engineering College: “We were pappy to host the first “MDAton” in Israel, at Afeka College, and proud that the initiative to bring it to the College came from our students who volunteer in MDA in addition to their studies. We encourage are students, the future engineers, to be an inseparable part of the community and the real world and to express both their engineering excellence and their values. I am certain that the cooperation with MDA, which blends in perfectly with the school of medical engineering, will create additional collaborations that will contribute to the society and the community around us.”

MDA Vice President, Dr. Eli Yaffe: “MDA volunteers come from many different professions and thus have extensive and diverse experience. The wisdom of these volunteers who work in high tech, the IDF and many other places can be expressed and contributed a lot in the field of emergency medicine. The selection of the top projects was difficult, but as far as I’m concerned, we all won, due to the volunteers’ involvement in this important and moving project. ”

MDA Director General, Eli Bin: “On behalf of all the citizens, I thank all of the teams for your efforts to help MDA continue to develop a variety of technologies aimed at shortening the response times and raising the chances of saving lives wherever needed. The “MDAton” was an initiation that was born out of a desire to expand the range of means at our disposal, and at that we were successful. I thank the management of Afeka College of Engineering for its cooperation.”