Smart D8 pilot projects to focus on using AI to transform cancer diagnoses, supporting men’s health and managing heart failure through patient empowerment

• Announcement of 2025 pilots marks the fifth year of the community health and wellbeing programme.
• Smart D8 is led by The Digital Hub, Dublin City Council, St James’s Hospital and Smart Dublin.
• The initiative has reached over 40% of the Dublin 8 community to date.

Smart D8, Dublin’s first smart district dedicated to addressing community health and wellbeing in the heart of Dublin 8, has announced three new pilot projects as it enters its fifth year of successfully engaging the local community.

The pilot projects will centre on accelerating cancer detection with the use of AI, driving positive conversations around men’s health through community football and supporting remote heart health monitoring for patients living with heart failure conditions.

The announced initiatives come as Smart D8 continues its commitment to enhance the health and wellbeing of local communities in the Dublin 8 area following five years of success.

Since October 2020, the Smart D8 partnership has gathered expertise across a range of areas and has established strong community connections among residents, businesses and local organisations. Through the combined effort of pilot calls, local workshop activities and engagement with existing community groups, Smart D8 has reached over 18,500 people living and working in the 45,000-strong population of Dublin 8.

Smart D8 is led by The Digital Hub, Dublin City Council, St James’s Hospital and Smart Dublin. They are joined by Tyndall National Institute, St Patrick’s Mental Health Services, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute, National College of Art & Design, Guinness Enterprise Centre, Health Innovation Hub Ireland and the HSE in this unique collaborative initiative.

The pilot programme of Smart D8 operates by selecting a number of health and wellbeing-focused initiatives each year following a competitive application process. Selected projects are supported with community engagement and funding as they are demonstrated in Dublin 8 for a six-month period. After this period, they are evaluated to verify the potential to scale their innovations for long-term population health and wellbeing impacts in the area and beyond.

The 2025 pilot projects that will begin implementation across the Dublin 8 area this summer include:

• Early-Stage Cancer Detection by the RCSI University of Medicine & Health Sciences: This project, run by the PRiCAN research group, aims to support expedited cancer diagnoses through an AI-powered digital scribe tool, which will assist in diagnostic consultations in Centric Health GP practices in Dublin 8. The tool will support GPs by reducing administrative burden and monitoring conversations with patients for subtle symptom patterns potentially linked to cancers with the aim of prompting earlier investigation and diagnosis.
• Football Cooperative by Football Cooperative CLG: This project, led by Steven O’Connell, aims to engage men in positive health behaviours through weekly pick-up football games, encouraging conversations about men’s overall physical, mental and social health. Backed by South-East Technological University (SETU), the programme has already demonstrated a social return of €17.60 for every €1 invested and will aim to co-develop a robust outcome framework to enable national scaling through partners, including the FAI and Local Sports Partnerships.
• Smart Heart: Heart Failure Care in the Community by patientMpower and in partnership with St James’s Hospital Heart Support Unit: Led by Eamonn Costello and Eimear Kelly, this project involves the remote monitoring of individuals living with heart failure, a condition that affects 2% of Ireland’s population. Patients will receive connected devices that transmit blood pressure and weight data to clinicians in real-time, enabling the trial of a scalable model of community-based chronic care.

Jack Lehane, Smart D8 Ecosystem Manager, said:

“As Smart D8 enters its fifth consecutive year, I am delighted to announce the three pilot projects that will be demonstrated with the Dublin 8 community. Each year, the quality of applications for Smart D8 is increasing, which is a reflection of the interest and impact that the programme and these initiatives are creating. The three selected projects focus on key areas centred on population health and wellbeing, cemented by innovation and scalability. We look forward to supporting these projects over the coming six months and seeing the positive impact that they generate with the Dublin 8 community and wider areas to scale.” 

Ana Coughlan, Smart D8 Community Coordinator, added:

“Community engagement is at the heart of Smart D8 and we’re excited to see how people living and working in Dublin 8 can participate in the three new pilot projects for 2025. Over the past five years, Smart D8 has reached more than 40% of the local population — a milestone we’re proud of as we continue to support health and wellbeing innovation in the area. These new pilots are an opportunity to respond to local health challenges in meaningful ways, where improved health and wellbeing can become more embedded into everyday life in Dublin 8 and our wider communities.” 

The positive impact of Smart D8 has become evident through its enabling of successful pilot projects that have been trialled within Dublin 8 in response to local health needs. The initiative has supported a total of 16 projects to date, including Kids Speech Labs, which filled gender and cultural data gaps for early-intervention speech and language screening; Menopause and the City, a menopause education initiative to empower women and their family and friends to manage menopause symptoms; and MoveAhead, which pioneered motion-analytics technology to improve children’s movement skills and enhanced the skills of more than 500 Dublin 8 schoolchildren.

For more information on Smart D8, visit https://smartd8.ie/

ENDS

Issued by Murray on behalf of Smart D8

For further information, please contact:

• Corona Joyce, Murray, cjoyce@murraygroup.ie, 086 370 1947
• Amy McMahon, Murray, amcmahon@murraygroup.ie, 083 896 3106

About Smart D8

‘Smart D8’ is an urban demonstrator providing opportunities for indigenous and international innovators to investigate how smart technology and innovative approaches can improve health and wellbeing in an urban population.

Since October 2020, Smart D8 has brought together innovators and an urban community with a diverse range of entrepreneurs, academics, local government, national healthcare providers and public bodies in a partnership model to work to solve community health and wellbeing challenges at scale.

Smart D8 is led by The Digital Hub, Dublin City Council, St James’s Hospital and Smart Dublin. They are joined by Tyndall National Institute, St Patrick’s Mental Health Services, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute, National College of Art & Design, Guinness Enterprise Centre, Health Innovation Hub Ireland and the HSE in this unique collaborative initiative.

Smart D8 operates by selecting a number of health and wellbeing-focused initiatives each year following a competitive application process. Selected projects are supported with community engagement and funding as they act as a testbed in Dublin 8 for a six-month period, where after they are evaluated to establish the need for more permanent programmes for health and wellbeing in the area.

Smart D8 is focused on finding innovative solutions to improve the health and wellbeing of nearly 45,000 people living in the Dublin 8 region of Ireland’s capital city. Through funded pilot calls and partnerships, Smart D8 is facilitating the design, testing and development of future products and services showcasing their potential to positively impact people’s lives nationally and internationally.

Smart D8 was shortlisted for The HealthTech Innovation of the Year in the Public Sector Digital Transformation Awards 2023, globally recognised as Innovation Finalist at the Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) 2023, awarded for Innovation in Public Administration by the European Public Sector Awards 2023-24 and most recently Digital Community finalist at the .ie Digital Town Awards 2024.