Goals of the Alliance
BME-IDEA was started in 2003 when a group of professors who were teaching design in a Biomedical Engineering department or program realized that there were common needs among them that were not being met by current conference offerings. The first BME-IDEA meeting was held in San Francisco in 2003 and the alliance has met annually or bi-annually ever since. In 2013, the first Europe BME-IDEA meeting was held among programs there. The goals of the alliance are to:
- Review the experiences of different university programs involved in innovation, design, technology transfer and entrepreneurship in biomedical engineering education
- Discuss objectives, challenges, and opportunities for further development of these programs – including industry and academic perspectives
- Explore the potential for sharing resources and creating community–wide tools