Innovation in the glass cube - the InCube Challenge 2025
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Over five days, five ETH students developed an AI approach for the early detection of Parkinson's, winning the Audience Award at the challenge.
The InCube Challenge was a week filled with energy, intensive teamwork, and groundbreaking ideas. With their enthusiasm and fresh perspectives, the five students impressed not only us but the audience as well: Warm congratulations on winning the Audience Award!
The mission: Decoding Parkinson's
The InCube Challenge is a unique format: For five days, interdisciplinary teams work in glass cubes on real, complex challenges. For the fourth time, we at Roche, together with our partner IQVIA, participated as a Challenge Sponsor.
Our mission for the team was ambitious: "Decoding Parkinson's". The task was to explore how artificial intelligence can help transform the vast amount of complex health data into clear, usable insights for patients, caregivers, and physicians.
Why it matters
The disconnect between available knowledge and real-world usability creates critical risks:
Patients may miss opportunities for better disease management and early intervention.
Caregivers often experience increased stress and uncertainty.
Healthcare professionals can waste valuable time filtering out noise instead of focusing on patient care.
Trust in AI is at risk of eroding unless it is connected to validated medical knowledge.
Solving this problem will help bridge the gap between knowledge, technology and usability, ultimately improving lives.
The solution: the "Sentinels" AI model
In a very short time, the team developed an impressive solution. Their concept, "Sentinels," is an AI model that combines health data with data from wearables. The goal: to generate a risk score that can predict the likelihood of developing Parkinson's disease, ideally even before motor symptoms appear.
This approach, which helps patients maintain control and autonomy over their health journey, won over the audience at the grand finale, securing the team the well-deserved Audience Award.
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The value of open innovation
The energy, courage, and creativity of the students at this challenge showed us once again how important Open Innovation is to build bridges between technology, knowledge, and the daily lives of patients and physicians.
It's fascinating to see how students from various places come together here and, in this very unusual environment—24 hours a day in the cube—drive ideas forward. Even on day four, they were still incredibly hungry for new information that they could integrate into their results. I am deeply impressed by this energy and this enthusiasm.
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About the InCube Challenge
InCube is a five-day competition organized by the Entrepreneurs Club of ETH. It brings together international and interdisciplinary teams, each composed of five students, to solve a specific business challenge. For the entire duration of the event, the teams work and sleep inside a glass cube placed in a public location.
This marks the fourth year that Roche has participated in the InCube challenge. The event is a collaboration between three main partners: ETH, Roche, and IQVIA.