Are you a start-up working towards the SDG’s and are based in Africa? Are you working at the cutting edge of innovation to solve real-life problems? Is your start-up innovation related to Healthcare, Life Sciences, Performance Materials, and Merck’s innovation focus areas?
Application Deadline: 17th July 2019
About the Award: If you have answered yes to any of the questions above. Then we are looking for you! The Joint Start-up Programme, a collaboration between Merck Accelerator with Tech Entrepreneurship Initiative “Make-IT in Africa” is your gateway to quickly explore and validate the potential for co-creating and working in in the health sector especially in partnership with Merck.
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Apply to get a chance to work on a collaboration project with existing Merck’s innovation projects.
Fields:
- Digital Solutions in the Healthcare Sector
- Bio-Sensing and Interfaces
- Liquid Biopsy Technologies
Type: Entrepreneurship
Eligibility: We are looking for start-ups that fulfil the following criteria:
- Registered in an African country and operative for at least a year
- A business model with a focus on the SDG’s and a solution in the fields of Healthcare, Life Sciences, Performance Materials and other search fields such as Biosensing and Interfaces, and Liquid Biopsy
Technologies - Start-ups with at least 2 cofounders
- The team supports gender equality and diversity
- Applicants must be fluent in English
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award: This is your gateway to quickly explore and validate the potential for co-creating and working in partnership with Merck and profit from the broad network of Make-IT in Africa. In addition, we have a few perks for the best start-ups:
- Business Case Development:
- Fully paid bootcamp in Nairobi for top 20 start-ups (5 per each region) to ideate and develop business cases for collaboration with Merck
- Continuous business support, technical support and online mentoring and coaching
- Scale-Up Diagnostics and Design for Scale Training
- Ecosystem Learning Journey:
- Spotlight and exhibition at the South Africa Innovation Summit in Cape Town for 4 finalists
- Spotlight and Demo Day at Merck in South Africa for 4 finalists
- Spotlight and exhibition at MEDICA conference in Dusseldorf for 4 finalists
- Corporate Collaboration: A fully paid trip to Merck Innovation Center at the HQs to pitch for a collaboration project with Merck for 4 finalists
- Connect and Community: Three meetups in each focus region will be conducted to connect with a rich community of founders and innovators in your region going through the same challenges, as you exchange ideas and build lifetime connections.
- Access to Make-IT Fellowship:
- Investor meetups
- Business opportunities
- Potential exposure measures
Duration of Award: August 5 – November 27, 2019
How to Apply: Our program will be targeting start-ups across Africa. We will have one application platform where participants will be required to specify which region they are applying from and where their business is registered: North Africa, Eastern Africa, West Africa, and Southern Africa.
Visit Award Webpage for Details
