Innovation is about more than just apps, SaaS and the Internet of Things.
It’s also about cutting-edge medical treatments. It’s about taking on the most difficult cases. It’s about making the world a better place.
It’s about stories like NaNa’s, a 3-year-old cancer patient in Memphis, Tenn.
Diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive blood cancer, in October 2016 at just a year old, NaNa was admitted to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital after she started refusing food lost a significant amount of weight.
Aggressive treatment followed, including six rounds of chemotherapy, but she saw minimal results. Then doctors tried a lifesaving haploidentical transplant — a type of bone marrow procedure that had been pioneered by St. Jude — that uses healthy, blood-forming cells from a half-matched donor, in this case her mother, to replace the unhealthy ones.
Today NaNa is happy, healthy, and cancer-free.
She is just one beneficiary of the innovative work being done at hospitals like St. Jude.
At iSelect, we see innovation every day. In the agtech companies we work with. In the healthcare startups we support. In the resource efficiency efforts being promoted by entrepreneurs in a wide range of industries.
Because entrepreneurs make change happen.
They make stories like NaNa’s a reality.
Supporting innovation
The recent Davos on the Delta conference in Memphis is just one example of this power in action. As part of the effort to bring 250+ agriculture industry executives, investors, and entrepreneurs together, we pledged to support St. Jude, which is located just a few miles from the conference site, with the proceeds.
We pledged $25,000.
Attendees donated another $14,300 on their own.
All-in, nearly $40,000 in support for St. Jude came out of Davos on the Delta.
In an email, hospital representatives said: “Even more, I think the people at your conference are amazing innovators with huge potential to support the St. Jude’s mission as they learn more about the amazing work we do for kids with catastrophic diseases. I look forward to and hope we can work together again next year to make something like this happen again!”
We will.
Because this is a natural extension of the work that startups and entrepreneurs do every day.
While the doctors and nurses at St. Jude are focused on curing difficult childhood cancers and other so-called “lost causes,” our founders are facing impossible odds of their own.
They’re taking on massive, well-funded corporations in entrenched industries.
They’re developing new products and inventing things that have never been done before.
They’re building businesses and creating jobs in an economy where even getting revenue in the door can be a massive challenge.
They’re taking on the lost causes, and they’re winning. That’s why iSelect is in this business. Supporting the work of these innovators and helping them make a difference.
Miss out of Davos on the Delta and still want to donate to St. Jude? Start here.
Want to learn more about what iSelect is doing to drive innovation forward? Join us.
