European Health Catapult aims to shape the future of healthcare in Europe by boosting the development of top-notch European health start-ups. The best in three categories - digital health, medtech and biotech - are competing to become the best in Europe in their respective fields. But why are we so excited about it? Keep on reading to know more about our journey as finalists at the Health Catapult competition!

Hi, I’m Emile a 26-year-old French-American hybrid and the newest member of Triumf. Born and raised in Northern California, I have spent the past 10+ years living, studying and working between the United States, France, Brazil, the Netherlands and finally Estonia. Similarly, my educational background is just as diverse, with the experience of studying humanities in the US, business in Brazil and biological sciences in the Netherlands. I am a stark generalist and believe that context is necessary to understand anything. Therefore, Triumf’s interdisciplinary approach, ambitious as it is, is really what drew me to the table.

We're so proud that Triumf Health got invited to Madrid by the Startup Lighthouse team to receive TOP20 start-up award based on our participation in the program. It's amazing to get such recognition in the MedTech category alongside other amazing startups from Industrial IoT, Future Mobility and Traveltech industry. Congrats to MedTech startups SepTec, Innate Repair, Nocturne, OaCP and Radmol AI Systems for this achievement!

The change in lifestyle and nutrition in the society has been incredibly rapid and cardinal. In only one generation the childhood obesity rates have tripled. Statistics from Finland indicate that every third boy and every fifth girl aged 11 is overweight, at the same time one in three is overweight in the US. Alarmingly, obesity rates continue to rise among children and adults even though there are numerous intervention strategies developed to relieve this problem. Still, obesity continues to be the biggest challenge of 21st century and if this is not successfully handled, average life expectancy will decrease and the rate of lifestyle-associated diseases will increase. These estimates strongly emphasize the need to prioritize obesity prevention and treatment in this generation, which in turn allows us to shift the focus on the prevention of diseases. Our game helps kids with weight issues to find the motivation to control their weight, it helps them understand themselves better and teaches healthy behaviors that are necessary for all kids to stay well and energetic.

Last week, Triumf Health was in Israel as part of the Startup Lighthouse delegation with nine other amazing European start-ups, all from different industries. We spent five days deep diving into Israeli unique ecosystem, learning more about the history of the start-up nation and meeting people who have transformed the vision for technology. For Triumf, it was an amazing opportunity to understand the field of digital health and introduce our health app in one of the most tech-savvy countries.

We are glad to write about our new problem-solving missions and improved health-related tasks that take place in the Triumfland city on our digital health platform. Activity-based learning is an important pedagogical approach and we utilize this method in our Triumf health game where kids are getting new knowledge from the educational module and later on need to apply this information in different activities. This post describes how we have achieved this.

Asthma is the most common chronic disease in children. It causes swelling of the airways that in turn results in narrowing of the airways and difficulties in carrying air to the lungs. Allergens can trigger asthma symptoms that include trouble breathing, wheezing, coughing and tightness in the chest. Asthma management usually requires lifelong care, and like other chronic illnesses, asthma places a great mental burden on the patient. Our game helps kids with asthma cope better with their chronic condition, helps them understand themselves better and teaches healthy behaviors that are necessary for all kids to stay well and energetic.

In mid-August, Triumf team came together again to celebrate summer days and spend some time at Kadri’s lovely country house. As per usual, Kadri had prepared an agenda full of awesome activities, good food and quality time. But as it quickly turned out, Triumf team had not lost its competitiveness, which became apparent when facing each other in various games. The mindset during the “friendly” mini-competitions can be described in the legendary words of Lea: “No cheering for each other. We’re all enemies here”. And with that, Triumf Summer days had started!

In our previous blog posts, we have covered the journey of uncertainty in childhood cancer both from the persepctive of children as well as from the perspective of parents. As Triumf is getting ready for the start of the next clinical trial, in this post we will share some of the challenges that accompany the diagnosis of pediatric diabetes.

The other day, after finishing some work-related things, I went for a run. And just like usually during my runs, I used the time for reflection (although in the end of the run I was just thinking about surviving). But as I was analysing my day and thinking about the work I had just finished, I realised it was coming close to my one-year anniversary in Triumf - so the rest of the time I reflected on my progress in the team so far. Here it is:

Things are moving fast this year and we try to keep up - not only by providing more and better support for ill children through our Triumf health game but also by delivering more content. And now we are very proud to announce that the Coloring Book is part of our Triumf health game! Keep reading to learn more about the importance of mindfulness-based techniques in disease management and have a look at our wonderful Coloring Book!

The status updates and news that we have shared during the last 12 months of our journey have mainly been focused on the Triumf game for pediatric patients itself. And it's for a reason! Metaphorically speaking, since the culmination of last year's initial clinical trials, Triumf's hero has gotten prettier (see Leandro's blog post about the overhaul of game's design), wittier (see Kaari's post about new content) and even more social (see Kaari's posts about the mid-year recap).

In our previous blog posts, we have emphasised the importance of validating and evaluating digital health technologies (DHT) to ensure their safety and effectiveness. But what do we mean by “evidence-based” and what standards as well as regulations exist in the health care industry that help demonstrate the value but also increase the adoption of DHT? And what do we in Triumf do to ensure our health app for children is the highest quality possible?

Being a startup founder means I sometimes need to travel a lot and this blog post highlights some of the exciting events I have participated in over the past two months. Have a look!

We have recently added more paths to our Triumf health game, which is now available for following pediatric conditions: cancer, diabetes, asthma, overweight and surgery. After many months of hard work in improving the app to include more diseases, give better support and a more engaging experience, we finally also updated our visuals of the UI with a cute and toonish style that is better suited for our young audience. This blog post gives a visual overview of this major update.

This year has gone incredibly fast and the first half of the year is already over. So, this is a good point to reflect on what has happened so far for Triumf, the progress we have made but also to project forward and see what the next six months will bring us.

Our health app is available for several conditions, including cancer, diabetes, asthma, weight problems and children undergoing surgery. Last year, we had a valuable chance to involve childhood cancer patients in the design of Triumf game. We were able to demonstrate promising results amongst these patients. This time, our goal was to understand how our solution was perceived by diabetic patients, too. As such, in May we met with four charming testers from Estonian Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ELDÜ). The youngest partner was 9 years old, the oldest 12 years and their time from diagnosis varied from 3 to 10 years. The aim of the meeting was to have a joint testing session (although some also had a chance to test at home) to explore around in the game and give feedback on the experience.

Diabetic patients spend up to 40% of the day with excessively high blood sugar levels, which can damage blood vessels and lead to long-term health consequences (Van Dijk et al., 2013). Medication to maintain diabetes is effective to a certain degree, however, studies show that patients still spend up to seven hours per day with abnormally high glucose levels even when drugs are administered (Van Dijk et al., 2013). Clearly, further interventions are needed to minimise the negative effects of diabetes.

In order to help chronically ill children, we need to focus on many aspects. First and most importantly - their mental health - how they are coping, what are their strengths and difficulties. How we can support their strengths and help with their difficulties. But if they already have the disease then we need to monitor how their treatment is followed, we need to give information on their condition, their health and wellbeing, we need to support their general health behaviors so they could live healthier lives and at the same time empower and give a sense of success. These components that are necessary to induce behavioral change work only when these are delivered in a way that kids love. And don’t they enjoy playing games? In our mobile health game kids need to save the Triumfland city from the Disease Monster but how did we come up with that? How did we know about the needs of the users?

In the beginning of April, I flew to Dublin to take part in the Deep Dive Week organised by the Startup Lighthouse team. Deep Dive Weeks happen all across Europe and their aim is to help European MedTech start-ups scale-up up abroad. In other words, help start-ups expand.