The smart sweet
Prototype: students on an Entrepreneurship and Business Development Master’s course at the University of Girona (UdG) have created a sweet, Xupa Xip, that analyses saliva to detect illnesses; the first stage of the project focuses on diabetes. Presentation: the students have now presented their project in London as part of the Imagine Express programme
technology
The classic Chupa Chups was a sweet on a stick, a prime example of entrepreneurship in 1958 that shook up the sweet world before becoming an icon. But if that invention, a small sweet on a stick, is endowed with an interior sensor capable of detecting illnesses, then it becomes a smart sweet, or to be precise, the smart Xupa Xip. This is the project that has been developed by students on an Entrepreneurship and Business Development Master’s degree at the University of Girona (UdG), and the first prototype is now available. It is a project that has evolved from the initial idea focused on detecting infectious diseases, such us malaria, to focusing specifically on diabetes.
It is not difficult to understand how the invention works; when users eat the Xupa Xip sweet, their saliva is analysed by the sensor, or chip. The original idea focused solely on infectious diseases and won the Dream Big Challenge competition at the innovation party iFest, which was held in Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona. Over 7,000 students participated in the event in more than 360 teams, which saw many different projects put forward. A mere idea in the Dream Big Challenge, Xupa Xip is now a real prototype.
The Xupa Xip
Diana Ballart, a member of the team, says they are working on the prototype to specifically detect diabetes: “The original feature of our idea, Xupa Xip, is that it can adapt to diagnose other diseases detectable through saliva.” Ballart says that the use of sweets is ideal because it is a food type that helps with salivation. All of the technology is integrated within the sweet itself: “Inside the stick there is the test tube, where there is also a sensor that can detect whether the person does or does not have one of the illnesses it has been created for, which right now is diabetes. A second sensor will send the information to a smart phone, which will have an app,” says Ballart. The project is evolving, as Ballart explains, to make the sensor capable of more processes, like capturing DNA, which can be detected in saliva: “Our goal is to make Xupa Xip more intelligent every day.”
The ultimate aim of the project is to make the sweet capable of detecting more diseases. Without having to go any further, diabetes provides the perfect example. There is no endemic malnutrition in the West, but there are very bad eating habits, which is why a high number of patients suffer from type 2 diabetes. That form of the disease is not a problem on the African continent, for example, where there is only type 1 diabetes, related to malnutrition.
Another element that has been important to the project is making it easy to use. “We want it to be a friendly product; very easy to use and one which does not cause rejection, as can happen with detection by blood”, says Ballart, adding: “We want to detect illnesses in which something can be done later, not just to be a prevention or statistic.”
The project, now with the prototype ready, was recently taken to London for its presentation by the four members of the team: Diana Ballart, Sára Földes, Josep Mota and Ivan Simon. The presentation was made to a group of investors at the end of the Imagine Express 2018 programme, which is dedicated to creating new businesses and will form part of the 4YFN Mobile World Congress 2018. The participants (12 creative minds, 12 software engineers and 12 entrepreneurs), who will not have met before, will split into groups of three to take on the challenge of running a project for one of the strategically selected sectors. Diana Ballart explains that more than to compete they will be there to develop the project and give it a business vision. A lot of background work has been done to get the project this far: from talking to medical personnel to contact with the Diabetics Association of Catalonia, among others.
Dr. Josep Llach from the UdG’s Organisation, Business Management and Product Design department explains that the goal of the Master’s in Entrepreneurship and Business Development is to provide specialised and advanced training in the start up and development of business projects. The course content gives students advanced organisational training, especially in the following areas: start-ups and founding them in a complex and changing world; preparing for the creation of a new company or organisation, individually or collectively; preparing new business products; and developing organisational change. It also includes developing students’ abilities to resolve complex business challenges in a systematic and creative way and developing the core entrepreneurial competences of leadership, autonomy, assertiveness, risk assumption and innovation, as well as work experience through training in real businesses. The course is offered by the UdG’s Faculty of Economics and Business and coordinated by Professor Andrea Bikfalvi. Llach says that the importance of iFest, which is organised by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, with the collaboration of entrepreneur and Imagine founder Xavier Verdaguer, cannot be underestimated because it allows students to develop their full potential.