Project Title: Tanzania Swiss Innovation Entrepreneurship Initiative
Project Description: There are many health sector challenges that face Tanzania and Africa in general. This program was developed in order to create a strong collaboration between Tanzanian and Swiss partners towards enhancing child and adolescent health & well-being, economic prosperity, and sustainable impact in rural and secondary urban regions of Tanzania. The Kilombero district around Ifakara town will be selected as the testbed for rural solutions, while Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam will be selected for... There are many health sector challenges that face Tanzania and Africa in general. This program was developed in order to create a strong collaboration between Tanzanian and Swiss partners towards enhancing child and adolescent health & well-being, economic prosperity, and sustainable impact in rural and secondary urban regions of Tanzania. The Kilombero district around Ifakara town will be selected as the testbed for rural solutions, while Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam will be selected for urban solutions. There will be a strong emphasis on solutions based on modern digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and med-tech. The goal is to create and stimulate a coherent continuum of activities from research and technology development, through entrepreneurial implementation, industrialization & scaling-up capabilities. Prototyping and local manufacturing capacity will be developed, in particular, in these sectors to create a sustainable pipeline of new technologies, successful entrepreneurs, and start-up companies that includes close technical and commercial links with relevant to Swiss entities. Main objectives of this project are as follows; 1. Explore relevant institutions active in research and innovation, including public institutions, innovation hubs &accelerators, and the private sector. 2. Identify unmet priority health needs, especially in Ifakara, Pwani (Bagamoyo), and Dar es Salaam regions, which may be addressed via technology innovation. 3. Explore the role of drones in health logistics and the concept of setting up local Drone Hubs for maintenance, repair, and the manufacturing of certain spare parts. 4. Establish a pipeline of projects based on a bottom-up and need-based including the ongoing projects at EPFL and Tanzania. 5. Explore joint project initiatives for child & adolescent health involving AI, m-Health, and manufacturing technologies that can promote local manufacturing capacity. 6. Explore the establishment of the bidirectional flow of young talented entrepreneurs between Switzerland and Tanzania via an “Entrepreneurs & Innovators in Residence” Programme.
Principal Investigator : Honorati Masanja
Department Name : TCB
Time frame: (2020-03-01) - (2021-02-28)
The Essential Medical Technology Foundation -EPFL (Normal)
Botnar Foundation (Prime)
External Collaborating Partners
None added yet.