Improving Innovation and Access to Medicine and Healthcare through Contest

Sanofi, a partner of Viva Technology is set to hold challenges that aim at providing innovative and adapted solutions to improve the access to medicine and healthcare in Africa.

On this occasion, Sanofi aims to promote innovation in Africa, by launching 3 challenges to African start-ups within the framework of Afric@Tech.

This will be an international event dedicated to start-ups’ growth, digital transformation and innovation, to be held in Paris, France, from May 24 to 26, 2018.

This contest is meant to help in identifying, rewarding and accompanying the best start-ups in their goal of revolutionizing practices in the health sector in Africa.

Here are the challenges:

1. The first challenge consists of bringing a solution for earlier diagnostics of non-communicable diseases, one of the main growing health concerns in Africa. Identifying and treating people at an early stage with new technologies can improve quality of life and even save lives.
2. As Africa is witnessing a major evolution on the telecommunications field, the second challenge focuses on how telemedicine can improve the access to healthcare on the continent, by overcoming challenges of distance, time and lack of resources.
3. Finally, the last challenge deals with the stake of improving the education of healthcare professionals in the field of chronic diseases in Africa. It consists in finding solutions so they can get access to the last clinical information.

The contest is free and open to all African start-ups.

In March 2018, a jury will select the African start-ups that will take part of the innovation journey. Start-ups will be evaluated on 5 criteria: a concrete proof of positive results in at least one African country, the maturity of the project, the relevance of the solution, the potential of the market and of the business model, the competences, the expertise and the experience of the team, and at last the scientific proof it can be implemented.

Selected start-ups will be able to attend the Sanofi in Africa Lab in Afric@Tech. They will present their projects in front of a jury and will be able to demonstrate their solutions in front of the audience.

The selected projects could also benefit from a financial assistance and an individual support from Sanofi, through a system of coaching and mentoring in a bid to start a conversation with one of Sanofi’s Divisions to assess the feasibility of future collaboration in Africa.

Those 3 challenges are part of Sanofi’s strategy to accompany and to encourage innovation in Africa. They represent a concrete way to contribute locally through the support provided to the most daring and innovative entrepreneurs, in the achievement of their projects.