Hear about the Next Health Accelerator (NHA) from the co-founder, acceleration manager, an international mentor, a partner investor and an accelerated startup in their own words. This video, in English and French, provides a glimpse into the who, what, where, and why of Next Health Accelerator. If you’re thinking of applying, please watch!
We open recruitment for the next NHA cohort in November 2021!
Intrepid Entrepreneurs is proud to announce the 9 selected startups that represent the inaugural cohort of the Next Health Accelerator. Recruitment for African, female entrepreneurs disrupting the sexual and reproductive health space yielded 235 applicants from 26 African countries. After a rigorous review process, 9 startups were chosen representing 7 countries: The DRC, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda.
Next Health Accelerator is a 6-month program to catalyze startups for investor readiness and value chain access. Our focus on sexual and reproductive health and self-care is founded on the premise that unmet need for sexual education, menstrual hygiene management, family planning, medication abortion, and STI diagnosis and treatment will be most sustainably delivered by local African businesses.
Notably, 5 startups are addressing the issue of menstrual hygiene management with the intent of transforming period poverty to period pride. Girls Pride provides menstrual hygiene management education and skills training to create reusable pads in The Gambia. Pad-Up Creations employs over 100 people in Nigeria to produce single-use, chemical-free pads sold in 16 countries. Valorigo manufacturers single-use sanitary eco-friendly pads made from locally grown bamboo in the Congo. The Grace Cup delivers SRH education and reusable menstrual cups in Kenya. Kosmotive provides SRH information and access to SRH self-care products in Rwanda. Each of these startups addresses the lack of basic sexual and reproductive health education to normalize all aspects of puberty, menstruation, and fertility. These startups exist to provide solutions for girls and women to confidently live their lives and achieve their goals every day of the month.
Since Covid, Telemedicine has taken center stage as a health care solution. Sexual and Reproductive Health access through telemedicine and last-mile delivery are included in the tech innovations at Next Health Accelerator. Massira delivers SRH information interactively as well as access to SRH services and products through an online community in Ghana. Rocket Health provides telemedicine and pharmacy services for SRH needs including convenient lab test retrieval and medication delivery in Uganda. Verifie delivers STI self-tests and treatment products via doorstep delivery in Ghana.
Many of the Next Health Accelerator startups deliver products and services for family planning and beyond. Pharmaserve specializes in delivering high-quality pharmaceuticals in Nigeria through a fully integrated inventory monitoring system.
Sexual and Reproductive Health issues directly affect 300 million women and girls on the continent and the productivity of the entire continent. Remarkably, this sector has been shrouded in stigma. As a result, populations have greatly suffered from a lack of information about typical processes, solutions, and treatments. Addressing common issues such as period poverty is paramount to increasing girl’s educational attainment and full participation in the workforce. The startups of the Next Health Accelerator will scale to contribute to fulfilling these vast needs and normalizing sexual and reproductive health for women and girls as well as the continent overall.
Please join us in accelerating Sexual and Reproductive Health in Africa.
Next Health Accelerator harnesses the promise and potential of entrepreneurs with solutions to the most pressing challenges in health today, particularly in Sexual and Reproductive Health. We are looking for African talent that sees the individual as an active agent in accessing healthcare and achieving her health goals. We welcome entrepreneurs who believe in normalizing Sexual and Reproductive Health and who have scalable solutions to do so. We are looking for the startups that understand a shortage of 18 million healthcare workers by 2030 is both a challenge and an opportunity to increase access to self-care solutions that provide health seekers autonomy for diagnostics and/ or treatment.
Sexual and Reproductive Health is an expansive term including most stigmatized health issues, all of which are burdens for women to bear: contraception, abortion, menstruation, childbirth, and menopause. The issues are numerous, and the incidence is cyclical and multiple for each girl worldwide. These issues are common for women such that females are constantly managing them. Too often we struggle with sexual and reproductive health issues in silence, in shame, in unawareness, and even in danger. Next Health Accelerator aims to change this. Beginning in Africa, this initiative is leading a movement to create sexual and health wellness for women and girls by supporting startups that dynamically understand the problems women and girls face and boldly undertake the solutions to these problems.
On the surface, the Sexual and Reproductive Health challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically, can be quantified. The region has a population of 1.4 billion (2020), which is expected to increase to 1.9 billion by the year 2035 (Population Reference Bureau), 50 percent of whom are intimately, frequently, and consistently managing issues of Sexual and Reproductive Health. Think of something as common as menstruation. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 130 million people menstruate daily, yet one in ten girls misses school each day due to period poverty (UNICEF). Next Health Accelerator aims to solve this, and other problems for women and girls across the region.
According to the Population Reference Bureau, modern methods of contraceptive prevalence are 32 percent, with huge disparities from Chad, at five percent, to Zimbabwe at 66 percent. Further studies reveal that a steady abortion rate of 33/1,000 women means that as the population increases, the numbers of annual abortions also increase to 8M per year at present. Laws are not liberalizing as quickly as necessary to save women, however due to advancements in abortion technology health outcomes are improving for women (Guttmacher).
What is more, two-thirds of all maternal deaths worldwide occur in Sub-Saharan African. Two hundred thousand women needlessly die of pregnancy and childbirth-related causes each year, with a maternal mortality ratio of 533 maternal deaths per 100,00 live births.
The social and systemic challenges to improving these statistics can be daunting but we know intrepid entrepreneurs who intimately understand these obstacles will surmount them with ingenuity and determination. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified “an urgent need to find innovative strategies that go beyond a conventional health sector response.” As we recruit entrepreneurs for the Next Health Accelerator, we will pay close attention to those solutions that prioritize self- care, as defined by the WHO: “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker.”
Self-care health interventions are evidence-based, quality drugs, devices, diagnostics, and/or digital products that can be provided fully or partially outside of formal health services and can be used with or without the direct supervision of health care personnel. Some well-known examples include:
The Next Health Accelerator exists to create Sexual and Health wellness, reaching beyond existing boundaries to ensure women and girls in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to Sexual and Reproductive Health. We are here to make a global impact and to advance the wellness of women and girls across the globe.
Intrepid Entrepreneurs (IE) exists to catalyze the power and promise of young people and women to fundamentally advance their societies. IE is delighted to announce applications for our inaugural Next Health Accelerator (NHA). NHA will support innovators offering solutions in the Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) sector with an emphasis on self-care.
Applications are due by February 14, 2021. We welcome startups with an MVP from across Africa. Startups will be selected based on the strength of the team, the dedication, and passion of the founders, the potential market size, and the unique value proposition of their product or service. Startups must include a female founder or co-founder.
Next Health Accelerator will provide market readiness training, international mentors and coaches, access to a strong network of value chain partners and $15,000 worth of seed funding for 10 successful startups.
Sexual and Reproductive Health is an expansive term including most stigmatized health issues, all of which are burdens for women to bear: contraception, abortion, menstruation, childbirth, and menopause. The issues are numerous, and the incidence is cyclical and multiple for each girl on the planet. These issues are common for women such that females are constantly managing them. Too often girls and women struggle with sexual and reproductive health issues in silence, in shame, in unawareness, and even in danger.
Next Health Accelerator aims to change this. This initiative is leading a movement to create sexual and health wellness for girls and women by supporting startups that dynamically understand the problems girls and women face and boldly undertake the solutions to these problems.
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