On 23 and 24 March, the World JAIN Challenge (WJC) was broadcasted by the Dutch Embassy in Sweden live on Youtube. The main purpose of the WJC is to form the international learning community who are the developing e-health products and services for people with memory problems or dementia, informal carers and family, informal carers, healthcare professionals, healthcare institutions, government and healthcare insurers, which:
• Increase self-reliance and quality of life of people with memory problems or dementia and informal carers
• Extend the time that people with memory problems or with memory problems or dementia can live in one's own living environment
• Support informal carers, family, and healthcare professionals
• Reduce costs within healthcare promoting affordable healthcare, with the same number of FTE's serving more clients.
The WJC 2022 is a public competition for developed or prototyped technical products and services based on Artificial Intelligence. It concerns products that support the quality of life and self-reliance of people with memory problems or dementia and their informal carers and that will support professionals and informal carers in providing optimal care. The programme on both days was chaired by Hans Arnold and moderated by Thomas Arnold. On 23 March, the WJC programme included a series of presentations including an opening by Charles Scerri (Vice-Chairperson of the Board of Alzheimer Europe), followed by two presentations. After that, the three finalists presented their prototypes in the form of pitches. Which were followed by questions by the audience. The three prototypes presented were:
- CeCe: A platform with a wearable tracker (patient) and a companion behaviour noting app (caregiver) aimed at collecting information that can be provided to doctors and care professionals for treatment decisions.
- myAVOS: A healthcare platform for cognitive screening, patient monitoring and to provide interventions through a mobile application.
- DeepVibes: A phone application aimed at stimulating and recording conversations between family members and people with dementia. It applies Artificial Intelligence to monitor disease progression.
On the second day of the competition three speakers and three selected pitchers of products gave their presentations via Zoom. The three products presented were:
- ReACT: A phone application that gathers several functions in one calendar: appointments, reminders, a diary with own photos, checklists and contacts.
- InspireD: A phone application to support reminiscence where users can store photographs, audio memories, videos and organise these in albums, so that users can share memories and important events with friends and family.
- Genus Care: An always on smart frame device that connects, monitors users and alerts relatives when users are inactive.
Both a member of Alzheimer Europe staff and three members of the European Working Group of People with Dementia participated as reviewers in the WJC. Marco Blom (Honorary Treasurer of the Board of Alzheimer Europe) was part of the JAIN Expert Committee. On 6 April, the award ceremony of the WJC took place. The ceremony started with a roundtable discussion involving two experts in the field (Franka Meiland and Wijnand IJsselsteijn), Jos De Groot from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate Policy, Roland Driece, Director of International Affairs of the Ministry of Health of the Netherlands as well as the finalists moderated by Thomas Arnold. This was followed by a speech by Conny Helder, who is Dutch Minister for Long-term Care and Sport. After that, Conny Helder announced the WJC winners.
The prototype winner of the 2022 WJC is DeepVibes: https://deepvibes.ai
The product winner of the 2022 WJC is Genus Care: https://genus.care
The three events can be viewed on the JAIN YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTgNRCH86XAlFzv9kYEzWBg