Lived experience is critical for dementia innovations to succeed

12 December 2022

Ruth Neale, Programme Manager, Longitude Prize on Dementia

In November 2022, Challenge Works held two virtual hackathons to bring together innovators, dementia care experts and people living with dementia. The aim was to help innovators understand how they can successfully enter the Longitude Prize on Dementia and make the most of the opportunity to learn from those with lived experience of the condition with the goal of ultimately driving life-changing impact through innovative solutions.

Human-centred innovation is core to the long-term success of solutions entered into a prize. They must be designed with the end beneficiaries firmly in mind. They need to ensure they fulfil a true need and that they work in a way that the user wants – that means including end users in the design, iteration and product development of a technology. Across multiple prizes in multiple areas of innovation, human-centred solutions have resulted in better adoption and, in turn, long-term success for their creators.

Including people living with dementia, and their loved ones and carers, in the ideation and product development process provides an enormous opportunity for innovators. Their insights unearth the true challenges that new assistive technologies might solve.

The Longitude Prize on Dementia and Alzheimer’s Society are working directly with people affected by dementia at every stage of the development process, to ensure co-creation of innovations throughout. This includes the prize’s co-creation group who have helped us design the prize and the lived experience advisory panel which will launch early 2023 for the judging process.

The hackathons were a key moment to kick-off the connection between innovators and people living with dementia to foster human-centred solutions.

Lived experience of dementia

Trevor Salomon, a former marketer for software products, whose father and wife both developed Alzheimer’s disease was one of a number of speakers. Trevor’s background in the tech industry combined with his experience as a carer means that his guidance has been instrumental for both the development of the prize and the innovators’ understanding of it.

Watch the full clip with Trevor here

Paul Harvey is another key contributor to the prize. Paul was diagnosed with dementia in 2018. He spoke about the importance of the product being adaptable for both the person living with dementia and their carer.

Watch the full clip with Paul here

The Longitude Prize on Dementia will award £4.34 million in seed funding, grants and prize money to global innovators who develop the missing piece of the puzzle – assistive, integrated technology that enables people with dementia, and their carers, to continue to live as independently as possible.

The Longitude Prize on Dementia is accepting applications from bold innovators from across the world with game-changing ideas through to 2359 GMT on 26 January 2023.

23 teams will receive Discovery Awards of £80,000 each in May 2023 to develop their ideas into solutions. They will gain access to expert support, including continued collaboration opportunities with people living with dementia. They will be whittled down to a final five in August 2024, each receiving £300k to develop a working product designed with and for people living with dementia. Ultimately, one team will be named a winner in early 2026 and will be awarded £1 million.

Submit your online application here

For more information about the hackathon, read our top tips blog here, or watch clips from the event here.