Australian digital health leaders come together to enable solutions for overlooked health challenges: Winners announced

Apps tackling nutritional literacy in migrant communities and child sleep issues to be developed, co-designed, tested and delivered to target populations as part of the Priority Digital Health Challenge 2025.

SYDNEY, July 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Australia's digital health leaders have crowned two experts from Griffith University and University of Melbourne as winners of the Priority Digital Health Challenge 2025, giving them the opportunity to turn their initiatives into working, adoption-ready apps aimed at closing critical gaps in healthcare access.

Now in its second year, the Priority Digital Health Challenge 2025 is a call for innovation to address underserved healthcare needs, delivered by Cogniss and supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Validitron at the University of Melbourne Centre for Digital Transformation of Health. The Challenge was judged by leaders from the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA), the Digital Health Cooperative Research Council (DHCRC), the Australiasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH) and the delivery partners.

This year's Challenge saw applications from across the world, with two standout Australian teams selected to go through an exclusive 12-month programme to get access to the technology, expertise and infrastructure needed to move from concept to app to real-world impact.

The judging panel included Amanda Cattermole PSM, CEO of ADHA, who said, "As our health system shifts towards more equitable, person-centred and preventative models of care, building the capability to develop and scale innovative solutions is essential to meeting emerging needs. Programmes like this help ensure that the most promising innovations receive the structured support needed to deliver meaningful impact for patients and communities."

Dr Rowland Illing, Global Chief Medical Officer and Director of Healthcare and Life Sciences at AWS noted, "For healthcare organisations to scale digital  innovation sustainably, we need technology and initiatives that provide secure, scalable foundations from the very beginning. Programmes like this help ensure that promising innovations are designed with the needs of healthcare systems in mind and have a clear path to broader adoption."

Annette Schmiede, CEO of Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (DHCRC), also a judge said, "We know that many promising innovations arise from researchers and innovators who see gaps in care firsthand. The opportunity lies in translating that research into solutions that can be adopted at system level. Structured programmes such as this equip researchers to navigate the complex pathways from evidence to meaningful patient outcomes."

Winners of the 2025 Challenge

The two winning health innovators are addressing often overlooked health challenges: nutrition education in migrant families and childhood sleep issues.

Dr Sarah Hanieh , University of Melbourne

'Project SHINE' is an interactive nutrition education app targeting migrant and refugee families who face language, literacy and cultural barriers when accessing mainstream dietary advice. The app will deliver multilingual visual content to help families make healthier food choices, reduce sugar intake and lower risk for diseases like diabetes and obesity.

"I've worked on large-scale public health programmes for over two decades. But funding for digital tools like this, especially those co-designed with communities with diverse language and literacy needs, is almost impossible to find. Yet barriers to nutrition literacy continue to disadvantage families from migrant and refugee backgrounds, significantly increasing their risk of preventable chronic diseases," said Sarah. "What this Challenge offers is different. Not just funding but the right infrastructure and support to create something practical, culturally relevant, and accessible for every family that needs it."

Prof Caroline Donovan , Griffith University

'Lights Out' is an evidence-based app for parents of children aged 3–12, providing accessible sleep interventions shown to improve child sleep, reduce anxiety and behaviour issues and support family wellbeing.

"Sleep health is a national priority, yet 90% of children with sleep problems remain untreated despite clear evidence of risk for serious physical, mental, social and cognitive consequences," said Caroline. "The Lights Out app is a direct response to what parents have told us they need: an accessible, effective, and convenient way to address their children's sleep issues. Winning this Challenge means we can translate proven research into a practical app that can be scaled for families everywhere."

Enabling innovation for health equity: a new approach

Unlike many innovation challenges that end with funding or recognition, the Priority Digital Health Challenge offers winners full access to Cogniss's no-code development platform and expert support, usability guidance and testing from Validitron, and secure cloud infrastructure from AWS.

"Clinicians and researchers are more than ready to lead the next wave of digital health innovation," added fellow judge Prof Lauren Ayton AM, Associate Dean - Innovation and Enterprise, University of Melbourne. "What they need now are the frameworks and infrastructure to take those innovations beyond prototypes and into everyday care."

"Cogniss exists to deliver on the long-held promise of digital products to help address the health needs of vulnerable and under-served populations. This year's inspiring winners are proving that with the right tools, support and infrastructure, otherwise under-resourced health experts can finally tap into the power of digital to deliver on this promise", concluded Leon Young, founder and CEO of Cogniss.

The inaugural 2024 Challenge successfully supported two innovators whose apps are now live in the app stores and moving toward real-world adoption. This year's winners will now enter the structured build programme to turn their concepts into functional apps ready for deployment.

For further media information, please contact:Niv Dangwal, Chief Marketing Officer, Cognissmedia@cogniss.com+61 466 991 696

About Cogniss

Cogniss is a no-code ecosystem that empowers healthcare experts to create sophisticated, patient-facing digital health apps, without the need for designers or developers. It also provides the infrastructure for healthcare providers, insurers and life sciences organisations to deploy, localise and scale these solutions for their own patients and populations.

About AWS

AWS is the trusted technology and innovation partner to the global healthcare and life sciences industry, providing unmatched reliability, security, and data privacy. AWS for Healthcare & Life Sciences provides an offering of AWS services and AWS Partner solutions used by thousands of customers globally.

About Validitron

The Validitron is a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and research experts in digital health implementation, human factors, and evaluation, based within the Centre for Digital Transformation of Health at the University of Melbourne. The team help de-risk and accelerate digital health innovation, utilising their state-of-the-art simulation and design facilities located within Melbourne Connect – The University of Melbourne's innovation precinct.

About the Priority Digital Health Challenge

Launched in 2024, the Priority Digital Health Challenge supports innovators to develop and scale patient-facing apps that address critical health needs. Winners receive a 12-month programme of technical, usability, and infrastructure support to create, test, and maintain their solutions. Last year's winners have already launched their apps in the app stores. One of them, Melanatal, developed by midwife Ruby Jackson, has received prominent media attention, including coverage by the BBC and Nursing Times, for tackling skin tone bias in maternity care. The other, Journey to Recovery, created by a team from Flinders University, is supporting stroke survivors in their rehabilitation journey and is currently undergoing evaluation trials.

Media assets

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