Fiorella Marquez, a graduate student in NSU’s clinical mental health counselling program, beat out students from across the state and won a prize at the Florida Blue Health Innovation competition on Oct. 10.
Marquez was the only student from NSU who was selected to compete in the Finals at the GuideWell Innovation Center in Orlando. Of the 12 teams that competed, five were awarded prize money. Marquez was among these five winners, as well as being one of two students to receive an honorable mention for outstanding efforts.
For the past years, the Florida Blue Health Innovation competition has challenged college-age students to create and pitch solutions to a wide variety of problems. The focus of this year’s competition was anxiety and depression, and how to better support the management of mental illness.
“This has been a seven-year journey for us,” said the director of the USF Center for
Entrepreneurship, Michael Fountain, according to the Florida Blue Healthcare Innovation Competition. “Back then, we saw that we had so many great universities in Florida and we thought, how can we do something to impact health care in the state, the nation and be an example for the rest of the world. We are looking for solutions to big problems here.”
According to USF’s Florida Blue Health Innovation Competition’s page, “The American Psychological Association estimates there are 40 million American adults (18 and older) who have some type of anxiety disorder. Similarly, researchers believe there are more than 14 million Americans who suffer from depressive disorders. It is evident this is a growing and highly prevalent health issue in our society today.”
“I wasn’t expecting it, to be honest. When I saw all the other competitors and their innovations I was like, ‘let me just hide my app,’” Marquez joked. “But something inside of me was like, I’ve made it so far, it has to be for a reason. I was shocked… I looked at my parents in the crowd and I was like, ‘this is it, mama, I made it.’”
Marquez’s project, called UoK, is an application she developed that has compiled resources for support information about the management and treatment of anxiety and depression. It also has hotlines, GPS to find mental healthcare providers in the area and more. She hopes to expand the app to make it available on Apple and Android phones, but is waiting until after she graduates in December to work on it further.
