The National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Medical Devices (NCC-PDI) named the 30 semi-finalists in its annual “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!” competition.

MedTech Innovator organizes the competition and will connect contestants and judges in online meeting rooms for pitch presentations on March 23. The pitches will include innovations in the cardiovascular, orthopedic and NICU spaces. The event was moved to an online format due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

Up to 10 finalists will be selected from the semifinal round and are slated to participate in a newly created pediatric track in the Medtech Innovator accelerator program. The competition’s finals will be held in October in Toronto as part of the 8th annual Pediatric Device Innovation Symposium, hosted by Children’s National Hospital, with a share of up to $250,000 in grant awards on the line.

NCC-PDI is among five members of the FDA’s Pediatric Device Consortia Grant Program that was created to support the development and commercialization of medical devices. NCC-PDI is led by the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Hospital and the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland with support from partners MedTech Innovator, BioHealth Innovation and design firm Archimedic.

“There is a pressing need for more medical devices created especially for children, so we are proceeding with the semi-final pitch event in a virtual format to safely accommodate innovators and judges and maintain the schedule,” VP & chief innovation officer at Children’s National Hospital and principal investigator of NCC-PDI Kolaleh Eskandanian said in a news release. “Given the high quality of submissions received, we want our finalists to have the benefit of the pediatric accelerator as well as adequate time to prepare for the finals. We are grateful to everyone involved for being flexible so that this important work can continue.”