Since launching in January 2015, our East Africa team has been working to engage local partners in the region to provide deeper and more direct support to our innovators in East Africa.
Thanks to funding from USAID East Africa, we invited select East African innovators in the Social Entrepreneurship Accelerator at Duke to submit proposals outlining strategic projects that would benefit from outside expertise. Innovators applied for funds to hire consulting firms to assist them with high impact capacity building projects. SEAD team members reviewed the proposals and selected five projects for funding. Three firms – Open Capital Advisors, Excelsior Group, and On Frontiers – were matched with innovators. Some $250K in SEAD funds will be provided directly to the firms to complete the project activities with innovators.
The Innovators selected included: Jacaranda Health, North Star Alliance, LifeNet International, Penda Health and Sproxil.
The types of projects funds will go toward include:
- Assessing financial models and business plans for new service lines
- Identifying potential funders and investors to finance roll-outs of new service offerings
- Preparing detailed investor materials and full financial projection models
- Developing new scalable training programs
- Improving tracking and reporting on financial and clinical performance
- Support for designing and implementing new data management systems
- Research on country-specific new client acquisition
These funds are just one example of how innovators in our network are matched with the resources they need. Innovations in Healthcare is currently accepting nominations for new innovators through August 14th. Through a competitive selection process, innovators are chosen to join our network based on the strength of their innovation, their readiness to scale, and the financial sustainability of their approach. Once selected into the network, innovators receive a variety of support including great showcasing opportunities, access to our student internship program, peer learning opportunities and more.
If you are interested in nominating your organization or an organization you think would be a great fit, for our network, please click here.