The HealthTech Hub Africa has launched another challenge in which they will be looking to identify Africa’s most promising start-ups tackling population health challenges focusing on cardiovascular health, breast cancer or virtual health and care.
HealthTech Hub Africa announced that the challenge will identify 30 high-impact pan-African health technology startups and 10 scale ups with business-to-government solutions in the areas of cardiovascular health, breast cancer, virtual care and health, or the use of data for decision making in health.
Participating startups are expected to have business models that can deliver transformational population health impact in Africa.
“We are excited to build on the success of the first cohort of 30 startups and the excellent collaboration with the Government of Rwanda,” said Ann Aerts, the head of the Novartis Foundation.
“This is a great opportunity for us to help tackle cardiovascular population health and other health challenges in Africa by leveraging local solutions, validating them, and supporting their integration in local health systems.”
Aerts noted that the HealthTech Hub Africa challenge welcomes applications from any African country with validated solutions that already demonstrate positive health impact.
She added that the selected startups will benefit from a 10-month health and technology accelerator program, access to a public-private partner network, funding opportunities to validate their innovations in public health systems, and 24/7 access to a state-of-the-art coworking space that offers community engagement and partner matchmaking.
“We are excited to be launching yet another search for a new cohort of technology innovations designed to address health challenges in Africa. The HealthTech Hub Africa uses its annual challenge to bring together startups from across the health technology environment to innovate and collaborate, with a mission to transform healthcare for low-income and underserved communities,” said Pascal Murasira, Managing Director of Norrsken East Africa.
Officials noted that the startups from the HealthTech Hub 2022 cohort have delivered significant impact.
They are said to have increased their beneficiaries from 113,091 in January 2022 to 634,940 in July 2022, collectively raised more than $10.8 million, and created over 300 full-time jobs across Africa.
“Agile multi-stakeholder collaboration is fundamental to fast tracking HealthTech innovation. The HealthTech Hub has been a great mechanism to do just that, enabling a direct link between government, civil society and innovators to co-design HealthTech applications that are aligned with national priorities as well as policy instruments that enable a conduce environment for innovation,” said Joris Cyizere, Managing Director of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Rwanda.
Eligibility
According to organsers, the HealthTech Hub Challenge is open to all HealthTech startups with evidence of a legal entity registered in an African country, a clearly demonstrated population health impact through their solution whereas teams of two or more full-time employees can apply, and those with gender balanced team will be prioritized
Organisers also say that startups must focus on one or more of the four thematic areas of the Hub: cardiovascular health, breast cancer, virtual health and care, and optimization of data-driven decision-making whereas growth startups applicant do not have to be part of another accelerator program in the same year if they are selected.
The HealthTech Hub Africa is a health technology accelerator powered by the Novartis Foundation and based at the Norrsken East Africa in Kigali, Rwanda.
Operating across the entire African continent, the hub is part of a new investment push that aims to revolutionize the development of health technologies designed by Africans for use in Africa and to help fast-track innovations in public health systems in direct collaboration with government leaders.
It was founded with an initial focus on technologies helping fight against heart disease and breast cancer and developing virtual health and care.
The HealthTech Hub Africa helps governments and start-ups collaborate on data- and technology-enabled innovations that strengthen health systems in Africa.
