By Mark Kawalya
HealthTech Hub Africa has announced the second iteration of the HealthTech Challenge with submissions open for growth startups and scale-ups. The organization, which was founded by the Novartis Foundation and is headquartered in Kigali, Rwanda, is a health tech accelerator, with a mandate to drive the development of health innovations and technologies in Africa and fast-track their development in public health spaces through linkages with government partners.
The challenge is open to submissions from startups in all African countries, with shortlisted startups set to be advantaged from a 10-month health and technology accelerator program, access to a public-private partner network, as well as investment opportunities for furthering their innovations with a focus on public health systems. Additionally, startups will also have access to a modern coworking area that offers excellent community engagement and partner relationship building.
The HealthTech Challenge is a competition between selected high-impact African startups operating in the health sector and 10 scale-ups offering business-to-government solutions. The firms should have a focus on cardiovascular health, virtual care and health, breast cancer, and the deployment of data for health-related decision making.
Startups that wish to apply are expected to operate under business models that have the potential to be drivers of transformational population health impacts across 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,” Ann Aerts, the Head of the Novartis Foundation said. “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 into local health systems.”
The HealthTech Hub Africa challenge is calling out for applications from startups from any African country with demonstrated solutions that exhibit positive health impact.
“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.
