The Digital Health Innovation Accelerator Program (DHIAP) is looking to support scalable digital solutions using open standards and approaches toward creating global goods. The solutions must have a focus on building and supporting pandemic preparedness capabilities and speeding up demand-driven vaccine distribution and the recovery of communities and health systems in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

DHIAP will select mature start-ups and solution providers that already have a presence in any of the target countries. These innovators will receive financial, technical, and methodological support from the WFP Innovation Accelerator and other partners as they enter the six-month WFP Sprint Programme. 

DHIAP, which was launched in 2021, is powered by the WFP Innovation Accelerator and BMZ digilab – the innovation lab for digital solutions, initiated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in collaboration with GIZ, the German Development Bank KfW, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

 

What we offer

The WFP Innovation Accelerator has a track record of organizing over 40 flagship innovation bootcamps, supporting over 400 teams to rapidly refine their innovations, field testing over 100 projects, and bringing disruptive innovations to scale, reaching 9 million people in 2021 alone.

Hands-on support & access to network
Funding, coaching & mentorship
Scaling

Selected ventures will be invited to participate in a fully virtual WFP Innovation Bootcamp in November 2022.

 Selected ventures will be invited to apply to the WFP Sprint Programme – a six-month acceleration program with access to up to US$ 250,000 in equity-free funding, coaching, and mentorship support from a global network of relevant partners in the public health space.  

 Mature solutions that have proven their concept, scale, and value for social impact may qualify for further funding and support. 

The Call for Innovation for Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo is now closed. We are currently evaluating the applications.

Priority Topics

The programme will support solutions that can contribute to building and strengthening pandemic preparedness capabilities in selected countries. The priority topics are country specific. 

Ghana
1. Surveillance and case management software.
2. Supporting micro-planning of national and rural vaccine delivery.

Côte d'Ivoire
1. Case management and contact tracing tools.
2. Vaccine delivery and planning.
3. Online training/e-learning platform for health professionals.

Nigeria
1. Interoperability enhancement. 
2. Response capacity coordination and monitoring.
3. Big Data & Analytics.

Sierra Leone
1. Strengthening of laboratory systems to enable validation of infectious disease incidence.
2. Online training/e-learning platform for health professionals.
3. Strengthen traveler enrolment schemes.

Togo
1. Online training/e-learning platform for health professionals.
2. National-level administrative and human resource (HR) management tools.
3. Digital epidemiological prognostic modeling tools to enable monitoring and organized responses based on the visualized data.
 

 

Eligibility Criteria
  • Your organization must be an established legal entity (for-profit, non for profit, social enterprise) for at least 2 years.
  • Your solution should demonstrate adherence to the principles for digital development 
  • The proposed solution should be or work towards creating a digital public global good (i.e., follow open standards, open-source or open data approaches).
  • The developed or implemented solution should preferably use data and information exchange mechanisms based on global standards (e.g. openHIE). 
  • The solutions should be interoperable with other existing systems, including, but not limited to national health management information systems. 
  • The applicant organization should already have a presence in the country of implementation (country office or other permanent presence, subsidiary, long-term operations, or partnerships in the country, ideally with the relevant Public Health government agencies), and would ideally have the buy-in from national, regional, or local governments.
  • Your innovation ideally addresses one or more of the specified priority country-specific topics, or, if not, it can still contribute towards building and supporting pandemic preparedness capabilities in aforementioned countries.
  • Your innovation should have a demonstrated proof-of-concept with initial traction and a clear path to scale (capacity to be adapted, expanded, replicated or scaled).
  • Your solution should be able to demonstrate inclusion of, or focus on, supporting or increasing access for: women, marginalized or underserved communities, mobile populations, people with disabilities, and high-risk groups vulnerable to COVID-19. 

We welcome creative and novel approaches using or combining data mining, machine learning, blockchain, artificial intelligence, or any other frontier technologies.

Evaluation Criteria
Applications will be evaluated according to the following criteria*:
  • Impact & Scalability: Applicants should have a defined vision, an identified target group, and be able to demonstrate the potential to solve the posed challenge(s).  
  • Team: Applicants should be able to demonstrate they have a diverse, non-discriminatory, gender-balanced organization with demonstrated leadership and an entrepreneurial mindset.
  • Novelty: Applicants should be able to show how their solution and business model are innovative while being technically suitable and viable.  
  • Traction: Applicants should be able to present evidence of feasibility and adoption by the target group.  
  • Business Model: aApplicants should demonstrate the viability of their business model, how they intend to achieve a sustainable business, pricing, and financial model. 

*We reserve the right to adjust the eligibility criteria based on the changing context as new information becomes available.  

2022-23 Programme Dates

Application Deadline for Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, and Togo
25 September 2022, 11:59 p.m. (CEST)

 
Application Deadline for Nigeria


23 October 2022, 11:59 p.m. (CEST)

Application Review

Mid-September to end October 2022

Fully Virtual Innovation Bootcamp

14 to 18 November 2022

Sprint

March/April 2023 to September 2023  
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