Azadeh Dastmalchi’s search for a user-friendly blood pressure test triggered a decade-long research effort that ultimately spawned a groundbreaking wearable device and led the University of Ottawa PhD candidate to launch her own company.
On Wednesday, the biomedical engineering student and budding entrepreneur earned some well-deserved time in the spotlight. Dastmalchi received the Mitacs Social Entrepreneur Award in a virtual ceremony for her state-of-the-art smartwatch that tracks key vital signs and monitors cardiac signals.
Mitacs – a not-for-profit, government-funded organization that connects private-sector companies with post-secondary institutions across Canada in an effort to solve business problems – hailed Dastmalchi and the four other entrepreneur award winners for their “creativity and ingenuity” in finding innovative ways to help combat health crises such as COVID-19.
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