Students win Australian finals of 2012 Imagine Cup with handheld digital stethoscope to detect pneumonia

A team of Victorian university students has invented a digital stethoscope that could help millions in the developing world by assisting in the early diagnosis of childhood pneumonia.

The four students, known as ‘Team StethoCloud’, triumphed against four other teams to win the Australian finals of the 2012 Microsoft Imagine Cup challenge. The Cup, now in its 10th year, challenges students around the world to use technology and their imaginations to come up with innovative solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems.

Team StethoCloud, which consists of Hon Weng Chong, Andrew Lin, Kim Ramchen and Masha Salehi, will now move on to represent Australia at the worldwide finals of the 2012 Imagine Cup - once dubbed by Bill Gates as the ‘Olympics of the software world’. The event will be held in Sydney in July, where national winners from more than 100 countries will gather to compete for the international title.

Pneumonia is the largest killer of children under the age of five and more children fall victim to the disease than malaria, HIV and measles combined. According to StethoCloud team lead, Hon Weng Chong, more than 98% of pneumonia cases occur in the developing world where access to medical facilities and treatment can be more limited.

“Sadly, the experience for many parents is that by the time a child is seen by a doctor, it’s often too late - our solution aims to put a stop to this,” said Hon Weng Chong.

Inspired by the students’ medical backgrounds and passion to make a difference, the digital stethoscope is attached to a smart phone which listens to and digitalises a patient’s breathing sounds and patterns. Those patterns are then compared against a medical database to deliver an automated diagnosis and treatment plan via an app on the smart phone.

“In some countries, parents are known to hold off taking their kids for medical care because they often think a cough is just a cold and the nearest clinic can be a day’s walk away. But what if any mother could diagnose pneumonia? What if a healthcare or community worker on every corner could have the power in their hands to help save a life?”

The team claims that their digital stethoscope is 4000% cheaper than other commercial solutions in the market today, and they believe it represents a disruptive innovation in the medical space.

Microsoft’s Managing Director for Australia, Pip Marlow, said the finalists were doing the extraordinary and had a mindset that any problem could be solved.

“The magic of the Imagine Cup is that we live in a world today where the power of ideas combined with technology enables us to take control of our destinies and be part of the solution.

“The students show us that leadership can come at any age. For these guys, the world’s toughest problems are not a problem.”

Michael Harte, Chief Information Officer of the Commonwealth Bank and a judge at the Australian finals of the Imagine Cup said: “Young people have great passion and energy for improving the world, and regularly demonstrate the imagination to solve long-standing problems with new thinking,”

Over 1.25 million students have participated in the Imagine Cup since it started in 2003. This year, hundreds of thousands more will join the movement, coming up with brilliant ideas and technology solutions that have the potential to change people’s lives.