VP, Lagos announce Wellvis, Prunedge, Infodemics others to fight COVID-19
In the quest to tame the ugly head of coronavirus that is on rampage, Venture Platform and Lagos State Science, Research and Innovation Council has announced seven startups to help fight the pandemic.
These startups were selected by VP, and its judging panel that comprised its team members and representatives of the Nigerian Center for medical practitioners.
The startups have been selected are Wellvis Health, Prunedge, Infodemics and Wellahealth. Others are MyServiceAgent, Innover Technologies and Cmapit.
These seven successful startups were selected by VP and LASRIC participated in the #COVID19InnovationChallenge, to develop solutions to mitigate the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria.
MarketForces gathered that the seven were chosen from 500+ applicants who submitted applications over 6 days.
Those selected are expected to receive a $2,000 equity-free grant and opportunity for further funding.
The packages offer include access to virtual workspace and mentorship from some of Africa’s top healthcare, business and technology leaders to help scale their company.
Recall that VP opened applications for their #COVID19InnovationChallenge to find, support, fund and grow products and services that could potentially help millions of Africans through this pandemic.
BOOTCAMP
The 5-day Bootcamp is intended to help the selected founders and startups work with selected stakeholders to finalize solutions and launch.
MarketForces gathered that NCDC will give selected startups an accurate understanding of the real-time situation and will work with the startups to ensure they make the most impact possible.
SUPPORT
Meanwhile, teams of experts and mentors have been carefully vetted and selected to provide top-notch help to our 7 selected startups, VP noted.
According to the VP and LASRIC, these mentors are from some of Africa’s top, healthcare, business, and technology leaders.
They include Yewande Sadiku, Celestine Omin, Iyin Aboyeji, Rebecca Enonchong, Alexis Roman, O.O Nwoye, Seun Onigbinde, Titi Akinsanmi, Dr. Ola Brown, Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor, Dr. Ebi Ofrey, and Dr. Femi Kuti.
Each startup will have access to 3 mentors – medical expertise, scaling and launch, and technical expertise.
PROCESS
VP, and its judging panel that comprised of members of the VP team, representatives of the Nigerian Center for medical practitioners, selected the top 33 projects and startups to move to the next stage.
Due to the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, the top 33 were emailed to submit a video pitch and 15 projects were selected to pitch virtually to a panel of seasoned judges rather than in-person pitch.
STARTUPS PROFILES
Wellvis Health, founded by Wale Osun, offers solutions that promote primary care; by improving the health of the public through continuous access to personalized health information.
Prunedge, founded by Joel Ogunsola, is a technology company that develops innovative solutions to improve the efficiency of processes, the livelihood of people and aid decision making within organizations.
Nestor Inimgba leads Infodemics, a startup that uses existing social hierarchies in a community to efficiently and effectively communicate health risks.
Also in the category is Ikpeme Neto, a founder at Wellahealth, a digital triage bot that provides guidance based on Nigeria Centre for Disease Control guidelines and logs responses for follow up by public health as needed.
Mayowa Ayodeji leads MyServiceAgent, an AI-powered intelligent IVR system that can communicate with 100s to 1000s of callers simultaneously and intelligently.
It disseminates correct information from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control as well as pass on the data to the NCDC to act on swiftly.
Okorie Tochukwu led Innover Technologies is committed to using technology to solve problems. Their solution for the project is named COVID-19 Nigeria.
While Abiri Oluwatosin Niyi is a founder of Cmapit, Analytics a GIS and Data Visualization software that helps to analyze geospatial data and its variables and also visualize it;
Data variables concerning the coronavirus outbreak and how it can be tracked & visualized so that predictions are accurate.
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control Records 108 New COVID-19 Cases
VP, Lagos announce Wellvis, Prunedge, Infodemics others to fight COVID-19
