• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Innovators invited to pitch solutions for Nigeria’s malaria drugs supply chain

malaria-patient

Xinova, a global market network of innovators, technology providers and investors from over 100 countries, has announced a project to identify breakthrough approaches to improve the timeliness, quality and visibility of data for the malaria supply chain in Northern Nigeria.

With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Xinova is seeking innovators to reduce the 54 million cases and 82,000 deaths annually from malaria in Nigeria. The firm says it is seeking innovators to participate in a collaboration to identify new approaches to improve the ability to track malarial supplies. The top ideas will be pitched directly to the foundation for follow-on funding. The ultimate goal is to deploy and test one or more concepts in the field and measurably improve the supply chain.

Partnering with Xinova will allow the foundation to discover new solutions to this problem, noting in a statement, that many technologies already exist, but are not suitable due to specific cultural, political and socio-economic factors in Nigeria. After understanding and defining the problem itself, a team of innovators who are adept at crafting breakthrough solutions to address both technical and economic requirements will be assembled. These outside experts will bring broad technical capability and are free to challenge existing assumptions. Innovators will work alongside domain experts to quickly iterate ideas and develop them into robust solutions to address this problem.

“This partnership signifies a serious intent to engage worldwide resources toward solving the Nigerian malaria crisis and underscores the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to address some of today’s biggest problems,” said Edward Jung, founder and CEO of Xinova. According to Jung, people want innovation that is more meaningful and purposeful: Innovators seek better ways to use their expertise; technology seeks meaningful application; corporations desire more efficient deployment; markets want improved ways to reward solutions that address problems of great value and impact. “At Xinova, we align these intentions to amplify the impact of innovation for everyone, so we can build a better world,” he said.

Jung is described in a statement by the company, as one of the top 15 inventors in history, holding more than 1,000 patents worldwide across healthcare, computing, networking, energy, and material sciences and a co-founder of Global Good, a provider of innovative R&D to organizations such as the Gates Foundation. Furthermore, with more than a dozen startups under his belt, many focused on addressing some of the most prominent issues facing humanity, the partnership with the Foundation is a natural extension of his life’s pursuit.

Innovators and others driven to help solve this pressing problem are encouraged to apply throughhttps://www.xinova.com/fight-malaria/#participate and application closes on May 13.

All participants are to be paid for their time and travel. The top two concepts will each be awarded $10,000 for further project development and will be given the opportunity to pitch the Gates Foundation for a grant to test and deploy the solution.

 

 CALEB OJEWALE