The Teckno2030 Award: Encouraging Students to Use the 8 CTPs

What is the Teckno2030 student award?

Our Teckno2030 student award, launched in November 2024, is a financial prize awarded to students or groups of students whose work advances healthcare technology. The project is led by ECAM, a prestigious higher education institution, in partnership with Yuza. We wanted to create a partnership with all French-speaking Belgian universities and higher education institutions offering engineering or science and technology master’s programs. The project brings together 11 French-speaking Belgian institutions—5 universities and 6 higher education institutions. The award applies to students enrolled in technology-oriented programs.

To apply, students must demonstrate how their work aligns with one or more of the 8 Caring Technology Principles (CTPs). Only student projects are eligible, including master’s and advanced bachelor’s theses, as well as group projects completed within a learning activity. By showcasing the awarded projects and their authors, the Teckno2030 Student Award aims to promote the development of health technologies that meet patients’ needs and serve citizens and society, guided by the eight Teckno2030 principles.

“The award is really aimed at permeating the guiding principles among students.”

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The link between our award and the 8 CTPs
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Why is this prize important?‍

Our mission was to create an award that motivates students to contribute to the development of healthcare technologies aligned with one or more of the 8 Caring Technology Principles (CTPs). Most initiatives aligned with these principles focus primarily on patients, healthcare professionals, or tech developers, but we wanted to actively engage students. With this in mind, we decided to offer a financial prize as a strong incentive for students to transform these principles into practical innovations.

“Tech students will be the future developers of new health technologies.”

We know that some of these students may very well become future developers of such technologies. With this in mind, our long-term goal is to have students proactively integrate the guiding principles into their projects so that these principles become foundational to the development of health technologies in the future.
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How was the prize established?

Our first step in implementing the project was to reach out to coordinators of science and technology programs at these institutions to introduce the project’s vision. We aimed to identify representatives, or "ambassadors," at each institution who would support the project locally.

These ambassadors were responsible for promoting the award within their institutions to students and colleagues, as well as selecting the best applications. The selection process involved two stages: first, at the institutional level, where the top two applications per category (2 categories) were chosen, and then, these were submitted to an external jury.To engage ambassadors and make their work easier, we ensured they had all the necessary materials and a clear understanding of their role in communicating our message.
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Our third step was to assemble a jury of six professionals, including healthcare experts, technology development and valorization specialists, patient association representatives, and mutual insurance representatives. This independent jury was tasked with evaluating student applications to ensure an unbiased selection process. Finally, our fourth step is to ensure the project’s future stability.

To facilitate the submission of student projects, we provided tools with inspiring questions to help students explain how their tech solutions align with the principles. Additionally, we offered a guide with indicators to justify their alignment with the principles.

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Our challenges

Managing communication with students was a challenge, as a simple announcement or website was insufficient to foster real engagement. To address this, we actively shared the guiding principles and encouraged students to think about how their projects could align with these values.

Since this was the first edition of the award, we faced the challenge of ensuring students integrated these principles from the start of their projects. Most had already chosen and started their theses before the prize was launched, so alignment with the principles was considered retrospectively. We aim to improve this for the second year.

For this first edition, financial support was provided by the Daniel De Coninck Fund. Securing funding was a challenge, but we’re optimistic that building interest and alignment will support the project’s sustainability.

In the future, we aim to diversify funding sources and seek private sponsors, particularly tech companies. This approach would achieve two goals: raising awareness among companies and potentially helping them recognize the value of hiring students familiar with these principles.

We also hope to expand this award nationally by including Dutch-speaking institutions. Additionally, we plan to extend eligibility to related fields such as medicine, dental medicine, biomedical science, and nursing. This expansion could foster collaborative projects between engineering and health sciences students, connecting future developers and users of impactful health technologies.