Sonavi Labs, represented by CEO, Ellington West, was named the winner of the INNOV8 Talks pitch competition held at the Arab Health 2020 conference in Dubai. The company presented its inaugural product line, the Feelix smart stethoscope platform, to a panel of judges that included investors and executives for global health companies such as Philips, the American Hospital in Dubai and the Dubai Science Park. Arab Health saw over 55,000 attendees at this year’s event, including Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum , Prime Minister of the UAE.
The competition received over 7,000 applications and selected 8 companies to present on each day of the conference. The judging panel from each day selected a winner, and the top 4 went head-to-head in the finals on the last day of Arab Health. West presented the Feelix, which is comprised of respiratory diagnostic support devices and supportive software, on the first day of the conference and was chosen to compete in the finals. She would go on to compete against SensDX, an influenza detection company, Cardiolyse, a heart health analytics company, and VRapeutic, a VR company focusing on learning disorders and cognitive disabilities. Companies were evaluated on innovation, target market, scalability and presence.
“I am so glad that we were able to start 2020 off with this win.” said West. She continued “We brought the whole Sonavi Labs team here because this is one of the world’s largest medical conferences, and I’m ecstatic that we all got to be a part of this amazing victory.” As a prize for winning the competition, the company will receive a free booth at the 2021 Arab Health conference. Sonavi also recently won the MIT-Solve Tiger Challenge in Bangladesh.
The company displayed the Feelix smart stethoscope platform during the conference in the Maryland Pavilion, sponsored by the Maryland Department of Commerce. Lt. Governor Boyd Rutherford was a special guest of the event, attending the first day of the conference. Chief Business Development Officer, Brandon Dottin-Haley stated, “Because of the pervasiveness of respiratory diseases and infections, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, COPD, asthma, and most recently, the Coronavirus, many of the conference attendees that we spoke with recognized the potential impacts and wide-ranging applications for a device that instantly detects abnormalities with the same accuracy as a trained physician.