The Hello Mask project wins the Debiopharm-Inartis challenge

CODEV’s EssentialTech program and its partners won the first prize of the Debiopharm-Inartis Challenge for the new Hello Mask project. This award is an encouragement to the team that proposed the project.The project’s goal is is the development of a transparent surgical mask, which allows better physician-patient interaction. The loss of this interaction is a particularly serious problem for severely ill people who can no longer see facial expressions of their caregiver or loved ones. That is for example also what Médecins Sans Frontières healthcare workers noticed as they struggled against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014. The Hello Mask project was born from the idea of ​​a storyteller for seriously ill children, working at the Geneva Hospital, Diane Baatard, and the energy of Sacha Sidjanski of EPFL. The project will be carried out in collaboration between CODEV’s EssentialLab and EMPA in St. Gallen, which has already carried out a first technical feasibility study.