The hall buzzed with activity as medical students, researchers, engineers, faculty, and health leaders from around the world met and mingled. It was April 2025, and the inaugural Global Summit Conference of the Global Consortium of Innovation and Engineering in Medicine had convened amid the sprawling campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Three MD/MBA students from Pritzker School of Medicine/Booth School of Business, Rimel Mwamba, Mahesh Kumar, and Peter Hahn, were semi-finalists in the Global Health Innovation Grand Challenge. Along with 50 other student teams from 10 schools, they were there to pitch a powerful new way to impact patients’ lives through technology. Click this link to hear their proposal for CoThera: Transforming Mental Health Support for Refugees and Asylum Seekers through AI-Powered Care.

In addition to the Pritzker students, three other representatives from UChicago Medicine were in attendance: Maryellen Giger, PhD, MSc, who presented her research in AI applications for Radiology over the past thirty years, Sam Volchenboum, MD, PhD, MS, and Kimisha Cassidy, MS from HDSI.

Throughout the three-day conference, participants shared groundbreaking research and posed essential questions for the future of healthcare and the world, with a particular focus on AI, education, and collaboration. This inaugural Summit was just the beginning for a consortium that spans across countries and disciplines, and it was just the beginning for this brilliant, entrepreneurial group of students.

We at HDSI are excited to support the next generation of innovative thinkers and doers. To learn more about Travel Grants and other opportunities, join our newsletter or reach out to hds@bsd.uchicago.edu.