Futurize, Famfa Oil, others to launch new healthcare innovation scheme
By Abimbola Abdullahi
Famfa Oil Limited in collaboration with Futurize are co-funding the launch of its first annual Fuel Africa Innovation Programme, in partnership with AstraZeneca and Microsoft.
The programme, which was also co-funded by Bristol Myers Squibb, virtually brought together hundreds of students and recent alumni from12 universities across seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for an entrepreneurship boot camp and innovation competition.
During the innovation competition, participants formed multi-disciplinary teams, received industry insights, mentorship, and hands-on training through workshops to generate solutions for early-stage business ventures.
At the end, the teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges and were awarded pre-seed investment through cash prizes and opportunities to advance their careers.
Digital training is crucial to sustainable development, boosting entrepreneurship and job creation.
Chief Executive Officer, Futurize, Rhea Singhla, said: “By bridging the gap between education and the current labor markets, entrepreneurship programmes like Fuel Africa can unlock the tremendous talent universities hold,”
Participants had opportunities to network with peers and international experts to create a collaborative ecosystem that can drive innovation to grow the African economy.
Fuel Africa 2022 bought together the brightest minds across universities in Sub-Saharan Africa to address some of the continent’s most pressing challenges in healthcare, with impactful solutions while leveraging the power of cross-collaboration and technology and according to Mr Rotimi Alakija, Famfa Oil Limited, the only way one can move forward is through innovation, and this can only be done by investing in fresh solutions to solve current problems.
This year’s two topic areas focused on creating solutions that will enable access to healthcare as well as the management and early detection of Non Communicable Diseases. The mission here was to equip young entrepreneurs with the resources to build high-potential venture ideas and to contribute to sustainable development globally.
Enablement Lead: Africa Transformation Office at Microsoft, Yacine Barro Bourgault, disclosed that Microsoft, through the Africa Transformation Office, is committed to supporting education transformation across Africa with access to learning tools, resources and technology.
Barbara Nel, African Cluster Country President at AstraZeneca pointed out that “Through A Catalyst Network, AstraZeneca’s interconnected and dynamic global network of more than 20 health innovation hubs, we are co-creating challenge-based solutions with and for patients”.
She said according to the World Health Organization (WHO), Non Communicable Diseases (NCD) are steadily increasing in prevalence in Africa, and they are predicted to overtake communicable diseases by the year 2030.
