Bring your medical device idea to life.
Hardware Park is a nonprofit that provides the design, engineering, and industry expertise essential for turning ideas into reality. Our free prototype support is sponsored by Innovate Alabama.
You own your idea. We don't take equity or payment.
Your concept submission will remain confidential.
Getting started is easy and costs nothing.
We have a history of MedTech development.
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Medical device submission process:
Schedule a call with our team using our Calendly link. After you schedule a call with our team, we’ll send you a Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) between Hardware Park and you/your company.
A Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) is a legally binding contract that prevents one or more parties from sharing confidential information with others. It is commonly used in business, research, and employment to protect trade secrets, proprietary data, or sensitive discussions from being disclosed to competitors or the public. All communications related to your product concept will be protected by the NDA.
After signing the NDA, you will have the opportunity to share more information about your background and product concept.
After reviewing your submission, we’ll contact you to begin technical support, subject to approval by Hardware Park’s Board of Directors.
We're MedTech prototyping experts.
At Hardware Park, prototyping is where we excel. In 2024, we partnered with OD Revive, a Birmingham-based startup working to combat the opioid crisis with a wearable technology that detects opioid overdoses in real-time.
Our team blends design, engineering, and industry expertise.
Executive Director Mark Conner and Director of NextGen Programming D.J. Strickland bring decades of experience in engineering education and program development. Director of Innovation Derrick Austin adds his expertise in network growth and ecosystem enhancement.
The team is bolstered by Lloyd Cooper's industrial design prowess, the engineering and manufacturing excellence of Matt Fitzgerald and Arnar Thors, Stacey Kelpke's biomedical engineering leadership, and Doug Garrison’s deep expertise in technology, supply chain, and manufacturing
Concept submission FAQs
If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to our team before you schedule a call.
Yes, you keep 100% ownership of your idea. We don’t take equity, we don’t claim ownership, and there are no hidden conditions. Your innovation remains entirely yours, and we may even help increase your intellectual property during the development process.
No. All submissions are confidential. We take your privacy seriously and follow strict confidentiality protocols to ensure your idea stays protected. We do welcome opportunities to help with early marketing for your company through short, founder-approved features on our website and with media partners. These features will never share information that would jeopardize your intellectual property.
We offer expert design & engineering support, prototyping resources, regulatory guidance, and entrepreneurial mentorship to help you refine, build, and prepare your medical or MedTech device for market success.
Hardware Park currently has funding through a partnership with Innovate Alabama to provide initial engagement services and a limited amount of technical assistance to concept-stage medical and MedTech device companies free of charge.
There’s no catch. Hardware Park is part of a state-sponsored mission through Innovate Alabama to drive innovation and support entrepreneurs like you. Our goal is simple: help bring groundbreaking medical and MedTech devices to life without taking anything in return.
No. Developing physical products, particularly those with medical applications, takes time and money. This partnership with Innovate Alabama enables us to help refine your idea, demonstrate proof-of-concept, and move toward a functional prototype to position your company to raise additional funding ... and continue working with Hardware Park to bring your product to market.
Medical devices are typically associated with FDA-regulated products. We use MedTech devices to refer to medical devices and any physical products designed to improve patient care, personal health, and overall quality of life that may not require FDA approval. MedTech devices are part of diagnosis & early detection, monitoring, disease & injury prevention, treatment & therapy, rehabilitation & recovery, assistive technologies, precision medicine, surgical & procedural assistance, data collection & AI integration, and a growing number of applications.
YES! We welcome your insights into problems affecting patient care, personal health, and overall quality of life. To share information about a specific problem, please click here.
Hardware Park is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We facilitate relationships between people with great ideas and veteran physical product developers with the goal of radically impacting lives for the better by equipping current and future entrepreneurs with the resources to transform promising ideas into world-changing physical products.