Meet the new Creators Circle program nurturing health startups

Registered nurse Melissa Biscardi wants her patients recovering from concussions to do their exercises correctly and often. She recommends oculomotor rehabilitation, asking patients to do a variety of eye-gaze exercises.“We know that if you take a heart medication once a week, that’s not going to be as effective as if you do it daily. So if they do activities only when they’re with you, that’s not as effective.”There should be an app for that, she thought. One, ideally, to make eye and brain exercises fun, ensure they’re done correctly and for the right number of repetitions, plus it should be affordable so all patients can access it. “I saw a need for financially accessible app but it wasn’t available. Everything that did exist wasn’t right or it was too financially challenging,” says Biscardi, who runs the clinic Concussion Rehab in Toronto, and is also working on her PhD at the University of Toronto.So she turned to her brother, who knows how to code, to create Brain Tool Kit.As Biscardi built and tested her new app, she discovered she needed help on a range of issus on the business side of things.“We’re so limited in our viewpoints, we only see what we see. So, the more the merrier. The more input we get, it’s so valuable,” says Biscardi.She already works with mentors with clinical and business experience, and is now part of the first cohort of the KITE Creators Circle, an incubator-style program that is taking in about dozen startups and offering them an intensive, 12-week experience with access to mentors, peers and people from health and other industries. “I feel like to get the app to its full potential, the Creators Circle is going to be really important,” says Biscardi.New startup ecosystemThe Creators Circle is one of the initiatives of KITE Creates, operated by the KITE Research Institute, the research arm of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and part of the University Health Network.KITE Creates has been running a series of events and workshops since launch last July. The launch of the Creators Circle is part of its evolution—something of a phase two for the program, says Garrick Ng, KITE Creates program lead for partnerships and strategic initiatives.“We’re providing pointed venture development support through an incubator-type experience. We’re taking small cohorts and very deliberately matching early-stage health ventures or research projects with creative collaborators to help advance a prototype or inform a solution,” he says.“l’ll be bringing in folks that help with venture development lens, too. So that's everything from fundraising, just structuring your business to, you know, just surviving as an entrepreneur.”Biscardi, who’s on the third iteration of her app, hope that the Creators Circle program will help develop a fair pricing model, leverage data to better understand how her test users are employing the app, find more funding and understand any legal and regulatory issues.KITE Creates works with new ventures under three categories: inclusive media, accessible communities and fashion technology. The program is already affiliated with projects that use clothing-related technology and virtual and augmented reality to help with rehab or other health needs, as well as digital apps to fill in gaps in healthcare delivery and information.Ng says the Creators Circle program could draw in companies from creative industries who have ideas that include a health benefit they wish to explore, and also clinicians, including doctors, who see a problem in their practices and are developing a product or service to solve it.“We’re embracing human-centred design, and solutions that help everyone, not just folks with specific ability challenges,” he says. Ng expects to work with companies that have a broad appeal, related to health and beyond, and also those with a health agenda that’s focused on prevention or treatment. This upcoming cohort will be the first for the Creators Circle. Ng says there will be more, but just how many and the timing will be determined based on funding.Big opportunityInnovative healthcare products can be part of what many are predicting could be a positive shift in Canada towards a more proactive approach. One Deloitte study predicts Canada will be investing $150 billion in restoring health, up from just $20 billion in 2023, and that includes the use of safety and wellness equipment in the home.Ng says he’s been making contacts with a wide range of organizations to find partners interested in the startup ecosystem, and has also found himself liaising with groups who want information from KITE about topics such as the future of accessibility. He sees potential in establishing ways to facilitate this two-way-street of support and information.Biscardi sees this new incubator from a clinical lens. She thinks there’s considerable potential from her peers in nursing, rehab, medicine and the like to identify patient needs and find a new way to support them. “The sky’s the limit,” she says. “There so much potential when you put creativity with clinical observation and then people from the tech side.”

Meet the new Creators Circle program nurturing health startups

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