Challenge America and the VA of Northeast Ohio Healthcare System are partnering to create innovative solutions for injured veterans through Challenge America: Makers for Veterans (CAMVETS)
CAMVETS assembles teams of engineers, designers, and other experts who create innovative solutions to the unmet needs of injured Veterans. This partnership between Challenge America and the VA will ultimately produce dramatic improvements in the daily lives of Veterans, their loved ones, and many others who face similar challenges.
Challenge America and VANEOHCS will host the very first CAMVETS program on April 25-27, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio at St. Edward High School in Lakewood. St. Edward’s
Joseph & Helen Lowe Institute for Innovation has 12,000 square feet of workspace designed specifically for collaborative ideation and creation, including makerspaces for hands-on design and prototyping; it is the ideal location for CAMVETS teams to gather, design, and build with their Veteran team members.
“We are excited to partner with Challenge America and St. Edward High School using collaboration and innovation to address the needs our Veteran heroes in Northeast Ohio are facing,” said Kristen Parker, VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System External Affairs Chief. “Partnerships like these enable the VA to expand upon the health and social services we already provide to enhance outcomes for Veterans by taking advantage of private and public sector ingenuity.”
The CAMVETS program has three major components.
Challenge America will collaborate with the VA on all three stages of the program.
- Veteran Challenges
CAMVETS starts with individual veterans (Challenge Knowers) and empowers them to identify challenges they face. Following this needs assessment, Veterans actively participate in planning meetings with teams of subject matter experts (Solution Makers) who will assemble to create an innovative solution that improves the lives of their Veteran teammates and their families.
- Make-a-thons
The program culminates in a three-day Make-a-thon, where Veterans play an active role in putting the plans into action by working with their teams to create an innovative working prototype capable of solving the unmet need they identified in the previous stage.
- Develop Scalable Solutions
Following each CAMVETS event, Challenge America continues to work with the VA and its other strategic partners to select the prototypes with the greatest market viability. Working through its partners, Challenge America then pursues opportunities to refine these prototypes and make them available to scores of veterans and others who face similar challenges.
