SAGE World Cup 2016 Winners: HelpWear Tech

Innovation is the very gadget of Entrepreneurship. It inspires the world when people develop solutions to fill gaps in a market that solves real problems. At our invention development company, MAKO Design + Invent, we help innovation to flourish and our journey with this year’s winners of the SAGE World Cup 2016 says it all.

Team MAKO congratulates HelpWear founders Frank Nguyen and Andre Bertram on their grand victory in the Philippines on August 15^th, 2016. Their creativity and innovation magnificently won over that of other representatives from across the world under the SEB (Social Enterprise Business) category.

HelpWear, winners of the CNE Innovation Garage Grant as well as the MAKO Student Innovation Award, accepting their 1st place prize on the global stage.

Out from Ryerson University’s learning zone, the startup founders aim to improve the lives of all Canadians by developing products for patients that allow them to monitor their health by themselves and be able to live a healthier life.

Frank and Andre have been committed and passionate about what they have been doing throughout. With their first invention, the HeartWatch, which permits 24/7 at-home heart monitoring and an in-built emergency contact system for further prevention and better curing of heart-related fatalities, they seem to have created a lot of noise already.

We believe the secret to their success lies in the real social impact they are aspiring to create through their innovation.

A prototype of the Help Wear watch, which helps detect heart attacks and calls for emergency help if one does happen.

We are no strangers to these outstanding young entrepreneurs. Frank has been closely associated with the MAKO family. Soon after their first meeting at the Fraser Institute Awards 2015, one of our MAKO speakers invited Frank to share the stage with him for a keynote speech about mentorship, entrepreneurship skills, product development, funding and brand building at SAGE Canada in October 2015. As a teenage entrepreneur, he served as a source of inspiration for students of his age at the MAKO-SAGE Innovation Hack.

We couldn’t be more proud to have awarded the HelpWear Tech team with the MAKO Student Innovation Award in March 2016 to help them take their invention to the next level. The award signifies strong partnerships between MAKO, Brookfield Institute and Ryerson University.

Later, in May 2016, by winning SAGE Canada’s National Competition, once again, they made us proud. We carried the utmost belief that the finals would be an epic part of their entrepreneurial journey.

This weekend, they will also be competing at the CNE Innovation Garage in Toronto, where our Founder, Kevin Mako, will be a member of the judging panel. Thus far, the team has succeeded in a variety of events and competitions across the fields of science, mathematics and technology and has also received impactful media coverage in Toronto.

The duo truly exemplifies the zeal of teenagers when they are given the opportunity to discover and invent. Their noble contribution in the form of HeartWatch is a boon for the home healthcare industry and their consistent efforts to tune technology towards creating a significant impact in the community are much valued.

We are honored to have recognized their talent at an early stage and by bringing the SAGE World Cup home, they have motivated us enough to keep supporting young entrepreneurs and giving them opportunities to take their business ideas to the next levels. An amazing milestone in their entrepreneurial journey indeed!

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!