ViTAL 2020–2021 Impact Report
Written by Thy Nguyen, Kevin Shao, Heenal Marfatia
ViTAL is an interdisciplinary collaborative of Northeastern University students focusing on healthcare innovation. The organization provides the opportunity for the members to obtain knowledge, connections, and skills outside of the classroom. This past academic year, we have expanded our impact on the Northeastern community despite the COVID-19 pandemic. We launched our first podcast channel discussing important healthcare issues, such as Black Health Matters, COVID-19, and digital health series. In addition, we successfully established the Ventures Consulting team, a student-led pro-bono consulting initiative. For our third annual Husky Health Innovation Challenge, we opened to the Greater Boston community and attracted students from 8 universities.
Husky Health Innovation Challenge:
For the first time ever, HHIC extended its outreach to over 60 undergraduate institutions in the Greater Boston Area. Overall, students from 8 universities competed in the case competition and attended various event programming. Thanks to our sponsors (AARP, Accenture, J&J, Trinity, Bouve, CoE, Khoury, MeHI), HHIC was able to remove financial barriers to participate in the case competition and event programming. Winners were provided with $3,000 in funding to take their innovations a step further.
ViTAL Ventures Consulting:
In 2020, our first-ever VVC team worked with Phimentum, a Boston-based startup that empowers dentists to take on orthodontic capabilities through easy-to-use machine learning technology. VVC delivered an in-depth customer analysis, collaborated with the Phimentum team to strengthen their value proposition, and identified marketing strategies that could drive early-stage growth. Phimentum is now going to be a part of the 2021 MassChallenge Boston Cohort.
Volunteer events:
ViTAL launched its first community volunteering initiatives in fall of 2020, amid the pandemic. To support Rosie’s Place, a local women’s shelter, ViTAL initiated a virtual food drive within our student organization that raised $701.86.
ViTAL Chats:
ViTAL Chats, ViTAL’s podcast channel, was launched with the purpose to inform students with essential healthcare topics and introduce members to inspiring speakers from various expertise. Some of the important issues we discuss are health disparities and systemic racism, digital health, and COVID-19 pandemic. We are also honored to collaborate with Bouve College of Pharmacy to create a podcast episode addressing the anti-Asian hate crimes for the continuing education program for pharmacists.
Successful story:
Heenal Marfatia — ViTAL’s Executive Director
How has ViTAL helped you land your co-op at MassChallenge?
ViTAL introduced me to many non-traditional career paths in the healthcare field.
Specifically, I learned more about accelerators, incubators, and the startup realm and explored various opportunities within the field. I then landed a Marketing and Events co-op at MassChallenge HealthTech, a startup accelerator based out of Boston. I believe that without ViTAL, I’d never have a chance to gain such a great non-traditional experience.
What is your vision for ViTAL next year?
I hope to bring our community together more. As we have grown our e-board and community, we are becoming more recognized as an organization in and around Northeastern. I would love to see us further branch out and develop our network. In addition, I hope to see ViTAL continue to provide the student members an opportunity to learn more about the healthcare field through different perspectives.
Shibangi Saha — ViTAL’s alumna
How has ViTAL helped you land your current position at Iora Health?
I learnt about Iora Health at a ViTAL event during my last year at Northeastern. Dr. Rushika Fernandopulle, the cofounder, came to speak about value based care and his insights and passion inspired me deeply. After that, I did some research and was impressed with the company’s mission-driven values, passion for data utilization in care models, and motives to “disrupt healthcare.” These drove me to apply to the data engineering position given my pre-med and computer science background. Looking back, being able to quote Dr. Fernandopulle and having met such an integral part of the company are definitely helpful in the interviews. Currently, I thoroughly enjoy my role and believe that ViTAL definitely played a big factor in this.
What are some achievements you hope to see from ViTAL next year?
It’s so amazing to see ViTAL’s growth over the years. This upcoming year, I am excited to support the team in every way I can while hoping to see the team propel itself in its mission to keep students engaged in the healthcare innovation-driven space.
Alumni spotlight:
Chris Han — 2020–2021 Executive Director
Given the unprecedented circumstances, Chris had to lead ViTAL in a completely virtual environment while still ensuring that all ViTAL members had a fulfilling experience for this past year. Despite all these difficulties, ViTAL continued to adapt to stay on top of outreach and find new sponsors for the organization. As a result, ViTAL was able to open up its Husky Health Innovation Challenge (HHIC) to all undergraduates in the Greater Boston Community for the first time ever.
By continuing to bring together healthcare thinkers and people who are passionate about healthcare innovation, Chris believes ViTAL can remain an open community that encourages students to have an innovative mindset and explore non-traditional pathways within healthcare. Moreover, Chris hopes that the organization can be at the forefront of the healthcare entrepreneurship realm in the near future.
As we reflect on the past academic year, we wanted to show our appreciation to everyone supporting ViTAL. To Northeastern and other organizations we have the pleasure to collaborate with. To our sponsors and speakers for their dedicated time, inspiring insights, and generous resources. To our advisors, Dr. Kevin Scanlon, Laurie Bishop, and Philippe Sommer, for their continued guidance and support of our mission and vision. And finally, to our fellow e-board and general members for their enthusiasm and participation in our organization’s operation, events, case competitions, and projects.
