Winners of the MAKO Student Innovation Award Pitch on Dragons’ Den

Updated on January 9, 2025

HelpWear is striving to provide better at-home healthcare with a new innovative medical product design that is changing the game: the HeartWatch. The HeartWatch is a 24/7 wearable heart monitoring system that detects when the wearer suffers a heart attack and contacts emergency medical services.

The watch also records minor heart palpitations and arrhythmias and can flag them for review by a physician. It is currently in the development stages, but it’s no surprise that this new medical product design is attracting a lot of attention.

This medical product design team won the MAKO Student Innovation Award. — The winners of the MAKO Student Innovation Award and co-founders of HelpWear.

Medical Product Design Winners of the MAKO Student Innovation Award, HelpWear

HelpWear is currently part of an incubator in St. Michael’s Hospital and Ryerson University’s Biomedical Zone in Toronto. It is a company headed by young innovators who have won a few of MAKO’s community awards in the past for their innovative medical product design, including a $100K grant in partnership with Brookfield Institute and Ryerson, as well as the MAKO Student Innovation Award.

This past summer, they also won a $25,000 grant at the CNE Innovation Garage’s Emerging Innovators pitch competition, where Kevin Mako was one of the judges along with astronaut Jeremy Hansen, HP Canada’s marketing manager, and many others with diverse backgrounds.

The medical product design team pitched their product on Dragons' Den. — The HelpWear co-founders pitch their product on Dragons’ Den.

HelpWear on Dragon’s Den

And if that isn’t impressive enough, the innovators behind HelpWear, Andre Bertram and Frank Nguyen, recently took their product to Dragons’ Den, where they were asking the Dragons for $100K in exchange for 10% of their company. Remarkably, all of the Dragons jumped at the opportunity to invest in their company, and they ended up receiving $100K for 12% of their medical product innovation!

HelpWear’s primary goal is to create innovative medical products that are more affordable and accessible for patients all around the world. There’s no doubt they are going to be game-changers in the industry. The entire team at MAKO is thrilled to be a part of their journey and couldn’t be more proud of the young inventors.