Tech Awards 2010: 15 Innovations That Could Save The World (PHOTOS)

The annual Tech Awards honor technology applications and innovations that benefit humanity.

Launched in 2000 by theTech Museum of Innovation, the Tech Awards recognize individuals, for-profit companies, and nonprofit organizations from around the world. An international panel of judges nominate three Laureates in each of the following five categories: Environment, Economic Development, Education, Equality and Health. All fifteen Laureates will be inducted into the Tech Awards Network during the Tech Awards 10th Anniversary Gala on November 6. Five winners, one from each category, will also be awarded $50,000.

The 2010 Laureates were announced on September 21. View our slideshow (below) to see who was nominated and how their breakthroughs are changing the world.

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PharmaJet

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Pharmajet has created a jet-injection system that uses air pressure to deliver vaccines and drugs through the skin without the use of needles. The system prevents cross-contamination and needle-related injuries, helps cut down on wasted vaccines, and could save billions of dollars in yearly needle costs, according to the Tech Museum. (Nokia Health Award Laureate.)

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Pharmajet has created a jet-injection system that uses air pressure to deliver vaccines and drugs through the skin without the use of needles. The system prevents cross-contamination and needle-related injuries, helps cut down on wasted vaccines, and could save billions of dollars in yearly needle costs, according to the Tech Museum. (Nokia Health Award Laureate.)

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This Innovation

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Good Game Changer

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Comments

[Bret Waters]

04:20 PM on 09/28/2010

ToughStuff also has an interesting program in the US where if you buy one of their solar lamps for $35, half the purchase price goes to support their work in developing countries. See http://toughstuffsolar.com/ . Great idea.

[Peter Bockenthien]

02:04 PM on 09/28/2010

I didn't see a single invention that would save the world. Not one of them addresses root causes.

[jgeurian21]

12:58 PM on 09/28/2010

Odd that not a single one of these people are in Huff Post's Tech Game Changers section. Odd that they would have a story about 15 techs that will change the world and then put a guy that makes cell phones as its Tech game changer. I guess bringing clean water, cheap energy and medicines to people is not nearly innovative as making a cell phone or MP3 player.

[curiousasheck]

11:21 AM on 09/28/2010

My guess is all these bug ridden over complex "technology's" we have are going to crash into a brick wall at some point. Kind of like our to big to fail economy did a couple years ago.

[babyjesussaysso]

12:27 AM on 09/29/2010

Yes, and the earth is flat and you're likely to fall off the edge if you sail too far.

[troyrobertdavid]

11:01 AM on 09/28/2010

The PharmaJet thing is not new, that’s how I got my vaccines in the military 25 years ago.

[Regina Todd]

03:12 PM on 10/15/2010

Hello - I work for PharmaJet as the Marketing Communications manager, and I am happy to tell you that needle-free technology has come a LONG way way since you were in the military 25 years ago! PharmaJet’s needle-free injection technology is safe and gentler than gas-powered technologies of the past. In the 1950s the U.S. military developed high-speed models, or “jet guns”, which had gas-powered energy sources combined with a multi-use nozzle interface. Both of these features led to inherent delivery problems, ranging from skin laceration to cross-contamination with blood-borne pathogens between patients. These MUNJIs as they were known were eventually banned in 1997 due to these inherent problems. The PharmaJet injector has a single-use, sterile, auto-disable needle-free syringe and a spring-powered energy source that creates an optimal pressure profile, which results in a superior injection experience and feeling compared to prior injectors. We welcome you to visit www.pharmajet.com for more information on our gentler needle-free device!

[J0E1]

10:59 AM on 09/28/2010

I'm glad there are non-profit groups educating the world on stuff like safe drinking water... but how are these groups considered "innovations"?  What is innovative about them?

[jgeurian21]

12:59 PM on 09/28/2010

As I stated above, I guess finding cheap and new ways to bring clean water, cheap energy and medicine to parts of the world that have been without is no longer innovative?? I mean innovation is sometimes not something with an LCD screen.

[IanGertler]

10:06 AM on 09/28/2010

Innovation will spur many new opportunities, but more important is the fact that it can/will solve the world's challenges (see http://www.techonomy.com/participants)! I focus quite a bit on this (my Twitter account at @iangertler shows more). I know that many are skeptical of things and often there are good reasons, but I still believe it's important to be optimistic as we try to figure out solutions for diseases, education, poverty, energy and more. We won't fix everything tomorrow (or likely ever), but making the attempts are critical and I have first-hand experience in seeing it make a meaningful impact on certain areas of life. Best to all!

[mheister]

07:12 PM on 09/27/2010

Pharmajet had better have cut a check to Paramount for that idea. It's straight out of Star Trek.

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

05:35 AM on 09/28/2010

Sigh. Could you please do some research like check not only the website for the company but also wikipedia.

[tonedef]

04:33 PM on 09/27/2010

I suppose this could also reduce the spread of disease through drug needle sharing.

[baomike]

03:55 PM on 09/27/2010

That's how I got my shots when I went into the Navy in 1963.
Rapid progress.

[mheister]

07:22 PM on 09/27/2010

I doubt it.

When I joined the Air Force in the '70s, they used a high-pressure device that shot a needle into your arm, injected the vaccines, and withdrew in the space of under second. Efficient, but painful. And I had to wonder how much of the injection actually stayed, as a number of us had blood running down our arms from this.

Pharmajet's device has no needles.

[Regina Todd]

03:13 PM on 10/15/2010

Hello - I work for PharmaJet as the Marketing Communications manager, and I am happy to tell you that needle-free technology has come a LONG way way since you were in the Navy! PharmaJet’s needle-free injection technology is safe and gentler than gas-powered technologies of the past. In the 1950s the U.S. military developed high-speed models, or “jet guns”, which had gas-powered energy sources combined with a multi-use nozzle interface. Both of these features led to inherent delivery problems, ranging from skin laceration to cross-contamination with blood-borne pathogens between patients. These MUNJIs as they were known were eventually banned in 1997 due to these inherent problems. The PharmaJet injector has a single-use, sterile, auto-disable needle-free syringe and a spring-powered energy source that creates an optimal pressure profile, which results in a superior injection experience and feeling compared to prior injectors. We welcome you to visit www.pharmajet.com for more information on our gentler needle-free device!

[Westifeezy]

03:42 PM on 09/27/2010

This seems like a great idea. I'm all in favor of cutting down on yearly needle costs. However, I am a little skeptical - I don't know how effective it will ultimately be - And messing around with vaccines and treatments can be very dangerous. In the end I think there are greater things that we should be focusing on improving. Then again, I guess that's why it's not number 1 on the list.

[Tom95134]

01:02 PM on 09/27/2010

The CelloScope has probably the most potential but... it will face many hooks that it must jump through before it is widely used. The most difficult will be getting some kind of FDA approval or acceptance. Most countries will not accept medical technology created in the U.S. unless it has some kind of FDA recognition.

I have seen this before. An easily cited product is the Piccolo blood analysis unit from Abaxis. Perfect for the 3rd world but not widely used for various reasons. It took some time to get FDA approval and I also suspect that because there is vested interests to continue to use established labs here in the U.S. other countries are hesitant to adopt the product.

[Jeronimo Dan]

02:32 PM on 09/27/2010

Your saying the same thing about each new item. What's with that?

[Jove Evander]

12:00 PM on 09/27/2010

Interesting.

[Buddy Simmons]

11:53 AM on 09/27/2010

This is NOT NEW. The military has been using these spray-thru-the-skin injectors for 40 years.
The Air Force used one on me at Lackland AFB in 1969.

[bookon]

01:53 PM on 09/27/2010

I got a bunch in 1983, before they declared be ineligible due to health reasons...

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

01:58 PM on 09/27/2010

Bother to read about the device please. It has had some innovations hence why it is called new and got the award.

[beaeliott]

11:48 AM on 09/27/2010

I think I remember a line in To Kill A Mockingbird referring to the self-righteous Aunt Alexandra that seems appropriate here. It went something like this, "When Aunt Alexandra went to school, self-doubt was not in the curriculum."
Too many comments here from folks who must have had a similar curricula. It's too easy to think we know enough about anything to justify our hyper-critical and simplistic misunderstandings.
Giving credence to ill-informed critics like (Sarah Palin and) people who criticize these efforts on the basis of a couple of paragraphs may be the source of one of the biggest problems facing humanity.
Granted, these projects may be less than humanity saving, but my guess is that few if any of the snarky comments are coming from anyone who knows more about these projects than the few paragraphs allotted to describing them.