Health Entrepreneurship Challenge

The goal of the Health Entrepreneurship (HENT) Challenge is to enable the creation of ventures with positive health outcomes in Africa.

Teams that meet the eligibility criteria will be selected for participation in a comprehensive training and mentorship program, with up to $25,000 CAD in funding for each top performing venture selected. Top teams will also travel to Toronto, Canada for 3-months with all costs covered, to learn and expand their entrepreneurship network.

The HENT Challenge is run by the African Impact Initiative and the University of Toronto Entrepreneurship Accelerators (Health Innovation Hub (H2i), The Bridge, and I-Cube). It is supported by the Mastercard Foundation and the African Higher Education Health Collaborative:

  • Amref International University

  • Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

  • Moi University

  • University of Cape Town.

  • African Leadership University

  • Ashesi University

  • Addis Ababa University

  • African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT

eligibility

  • Ideas or solutions focused on improving positive HEALTH outcomes across Africa.

  • A desire to work on building the solution with full time commitment from the team.

SELECTION CRITERIA

  • Your idea should address an identified problem/challenge in your country, by providing a comprehensive solution through a clearly defined job to be done.

  • Preference will be given to solutions that drive social impact, by increasing adoption, accessibility or affordability.

  • Preference will be given to innovative business models that are scalable & sustainable.

How funded ventures will be selected

Every eligible team that applies will be onboarded to our virtual platform to complete our pre-incubation starting in April. This provides capacity building to validate your idea/solution and guide how you build it in a scalable way. The top performing teams from pre-incubation will be interviewed and selected to proceed into incubation. Incubation begins in July, and the selected teams will receive funding and resources up to $ 25,000 CAD each to build their ventures. This is intended to cover pre-seed funding and technology resources. A team member from each venture will also visit University of Toronto with travel and living costs covered for 3 months, to learn from Canada’s leading entrepreneurial and investment ecosystem as they build their venture.