The online Challenge Seminars help set the scene and feature keynote speakers from different perspectives on the clinical problem. Speakers provide context from a clinical, engineering or consumer experience. Topics cover key areas where an unmet clinical need could potentially be addressed by a biomedical engineering research project.

Following the seminar, there is an in-person workshop with a set of Challenge questions. These are discussed in breakout groups during the workshop – one group per Challenge question. The questions are structured and designed to be open in nature; to explore new ways to address the issue. The aim of the workshop is not to solve the problem in one day, but to explore promising ideas. A facilitator will guide the discussion to workshop solutions to the question and identify a Project Champion and team.

After the workshop, the goal of ACMD Advance is to discuss the most promising ideas and provide assistance to advance the concept to become a collaborative project. The ACMD team performs a feasibility check on the ideas with field experts and a series of follow-on sessions.