Loka Innovators Award

A big healthcare idea needs a prototype. Build yours with help from an award-winning design and GenAI company.

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Bobby with students

Loka and Stanford Biodesign are proud to introduce the Loka Innovators Award, a new initiative to accelerate the development of groundbreaking digital health solutions.

At Loka, we believe that putting innovations into the hands of users as early as possible fuels faster iteration, sharper insights, and more transformative impact. With this award we will empower creative thinkers who are shaping the future of healthcare technology.

Origins of the Loka Innovators Award

Loka founder and CEO Bobby Mukherjee is a visiting instructor at Stanford University who has mentored the Lean Launchpad (ENGR 245) undergraduate course and led the Rapid Prototyping for Digital Health workshop at the Center for Biodesign.
 

"Innovation is the current that Loka runs on, and I could say the same for Stanford Biodesign. In my role as a mentor at the university, I've seen amazing projects that would benefit from prototyping and feedback, so we developed this award to help the Biodesign community deliver improved healthcare outcomes to patients faster. Our goal is to catalyze brilliant minds to change the landscape of health tech for the better."

– Bobby Mukherjee, founder and CEO of Loka

What We’re Looking For

Classroom photo

The Loka Innovators Award recognizes digital health projects that address a compelling unmet need. They can be pure software (app/web) solutions or combine hardware and software. Applicants must be committed to advancing their projects beyond the course or program in which they originate.

The award winner will be decided by a panel of digital health experts from Loka and Stanford Biodesign based on the originality of the approach, its potential to achieve impact, and the team's unique ability to address the opportunity.

Examples of past Stanford Biodesign successes that inspire this award:

  • Tueo Health: Pediatric asthma monitoring platform acquired by Apple
  • Emme: Birth control management device recognized by TIME and Fast Company; acquired by SimpleHealth
  • GuessWhat: Mobile game for domain adaptation and deep learning in autism care

Loka has developed award-winning apps that might serve as additional inspiration: dribbble, LokaLabs.

Award Details

Loka will provide award recipients with:

  • 100 hours of design and engineering services from Loka
  • A high-fidelity, clickable prototype
  • A compelling summary video to support funding and recruitment efforts
  • Exposure on Stanford Biodesign and Loka’s websites
  • Recognition on an award plaque displayed at Stanford Biodesign
  • Ongoing support beyond the award period as mutually agreed upon

Who Can Apply?

The Loka Innovators Award is open to:

  • Stanford Biodesign students and fellows
  • Other Stanford undergraduate/ graduate students, postdocs and faculty

Because successful innovation often requires a combination of skills and perspectives, we strongly encourage team applications.

*Project technologies should not be licensed or optioned to any entity. Any intellectual property developed during this project is subject to Stanford University's IP policies. Please contact the Office of Technology Licensing for guidance as needed.

Apply for the 2025 Loka Innovators Award Here

Key Dates

  • Monday, April 28: Application deadline
  • Tuesday, May 27: Finalist pitch session
  • Thursday, May 29: Winner(s) notified
  • Thursday, June 5: Winner(s) accept the award at the Stanford Biodesign end-of-year celebration

    • Loka will provide services to the winner(s) according to a mutually agreed upon schedule between June and August 2025 approximately.

    About Loka

    Loka group video photo

    Loka is the Silicon Valley full-stack software engineering consultancy recognized as AWS’s 2024 Innovation Partner of the Year for our work accelerating GenAI, ML, DevOps and Big Data projects. With more than 80 engineers trained on GenAI and prompt engineering, including over a dozen with PhDs and advanced degrees, Loka unlocks top-tier performance and innovation for Fortune 500s and VC-backed startups alike. More than 60% of our customers are in Healthcare and Life Sciences, where we excel in verticalized use cases such as scientific paper discovery, drug discovery, CPT code translation and clinical trial matching.