Impact Hub Accra is hosting and organizing Health Hack Accra, a health innovation hackathon seeking to improve health outcomes throughout Ghana, West Africa, and the continent.
The event, first of this kind sponsored by Merck, will bring together a diverse group of health entrepreneurs ranging from students to surgeons.
Throughout the 48-hour competition, teams of 3-6 individuals will create, develop, and pitch innovative business models or products to a highly-esteemed local and international judging panel.
Health Hack Accra is designed to empower entrepreneurs and health professionals to use their first hand experience and talents to find and develop business opportunities in the health space.
While Africa has seen a global focus on health improvement for decades, the pairing of medical needs with innovative energy will bring a unique shift to the field in Ghana, priming new health developments for both scale and sustainability.
This hackathon will spur a new network of visionary health leaders, coming from all backgrounds to improve health outcomes.
The event, supported by key partners such as Hack for Big Choices (San Francisco, CA, USA) and Facebook (Mountain View, CA, USA), helps channel the innovation and strength of Silicon Valley into a forum for locally-driven and developed solutions to some of the continent’s largest challenges.
The three winning teams, selected by a local and international judging panel, will receive a business development prize pack – including six months of co-working in the Merck Entrepreneurial Development Space (MEDspace) located at Impact Hub Accra, a five-day Unreasonable Labs business acceleration course, and support from Facebook (including acceptance into the Bootstrap track of the FbStart program, support to create a Free Basics compatible website, and complimentary business software).
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Source: Impact Hub