AMIU HEALTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACADEMY
Hackathon
Theme: Intersection of AI, Climate Change and PHC
June – August 2023
AmIU Heath Entrepreneurship Academy Background
Amref Health Entrepreneurship academy is a place where health care entrepreneurs are provided with an opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial skills, connect, collaborate and share knowledge and networks in an ecosystem where talent is plentiful but opportunities are few. The academy aims at creating a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem that will enable the entrepreneurs to connect with each other and access the resources that they need. The academy will attract local and regional early stage starts ups through entrepreneurial support programs and house a leading health entrepreneurial training and incubation hub where health ventures will be supported to accelerate and scale. There will be special focus towards developing entrepreneurial culture among college and university students and youth in the communities with an intended outcome of making them job creators and not job seekers.
Objectives for the academy
- Providing infrastructure to innovate, incubate and nurture healthcare enterprises
- Optimize entrepreneurial ecosystems and work with universities in Africa to launch and scale up health start-ups to create jobs
- Nurturing entrepreneurial culture among youth in universities, colleges and communities
- Setting up innovation hub where students and youth in the community will be supported and mentored to refine their innovative business concepts, develop entrepreneurial skills and increase opportunities to earn as they learn
- Building an enterprise zone at AmIU that supports commercialization of products and services diversity AMIU revenue streams and increase its sustainability (social enterprise)
HACKATHON BACKGROUND
The hackathon is an initiative of AmIU Health Entrepreneurship Academy and will run for three months, from June to August 2023. The theme of the hackathon is, ‘Intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Climate Change and Primary Health Care’.
Hackathon Goal: To identify AI solutions that address PHC challenges which are caused and/or worsened by climate change.
Hackathon Problem Statement
What solutions does AI provide to resolve primary health care challenges aggravated by climate change?
Climate change is undermining many of the social determinants for good health, such as livelihoods, equality and access to health care and social support structures. These climate-sensitive health risks are disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, including women, children, ethnic minorities, poor communities, migrants or displaced persons, older populations, and those with underlying health conditions. WHO estimates that, between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress. The threats posed by climate related stresses could create breaking-point conditions on such care and affect key parts of primary care services such as facilities, human resources and supply chains.
How can AI equipped technologies improve primary health care outcomes that have been dulled by climate change? How could adoption of AI give incredible insights and healthcare solutions in the face of climate change which is already impacting health in a myriad of ways, including by leading to death and illness from increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, storms and floods, the disruption of food systems, increases in food- water- and vector-borne diseases, and mental health issues.
Target
The hackathon targets two sets of participants;
- University and college students; they will participate in teams of 3-5, drawn from the same university or different universities.
- Early startups in health care; these categories of participants will constitute health care early startups.
Expected outcomes:
- Development of AI driven solutions to PHC challenges which are associated to climate change
- Provision of support for the three most innovative solutions (seed capital and technical support to help early startups accelerate and scale)
- Creation of an ecosystem that establishes a collaboration between the industry and institutions of higher learning, in the fight against the effects of climate change on PHC