The Health Entrepreneurship (HENT) Challenge’s first cohort is getting ready for their upcoming visit to Toronto, where they will continue their implementation phase through activities targeting business development, expanding entrepreneurial networks and facilitating exposure to potential investors.
In the meantime, the HENT Communications team caught up with the ventures from the first HENT Challenge cohort to learn more about the origins of their companies, what they’ve learned to date, and what is coming up next…
Conrad Tankou was working as a medical doctor in a rural community when he first witnessed the health challenges faced by rural residents. These areas were known to suffer the highest disease burden of breast and cervical cancers, with one of the biggest challenges being the ability to access specialized healthcare services for those diagnoses. Tankou noted that some of the reasons behind this issue included scarcity of qualified medical specialists, absence of adapted medical equipment, and low levels of health literacy among the population-at-risk with regards to these cancers.
To combat these issues, Tankou started GICMED, a series of innovative MedTech solutions. Among these solutions, the team has developed a digital pathology system combined with pathology sample collection devices to deliver a patient-clinic interactive telemedicine platform that is enhancing diagnosis and engaging patients. Alongside his team, Tankou’s solutions provide rapid and inexpensive point of care diagnoses for all women, no matter their location or social status.
What is the accomplishment to date that your team is most proud of?
Since its launch, GICMED has successfully developed, piloted and clinically validated their solutions to serve as a solid foundation to scale-up and positively impact millions of women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Their team has carried out 23 pilots to date in collaboration with various health facilities and have reached over 10,000 women.
If you could give advice to another founder getting started, what would that be?
“Everyone can think of a great idea, but few are courageous enough to execute. You should be passionate about what you want to build, start small and early, fail fast (everyone fails, it is normal), learn quickly from your failures, refine your concept, then move faster.”
Looking forward, GICMED plans on reaching 100,000 women in 2024 and scaling to other African countries within the next 3-5 years to eventually hit a milestone of 1 million women helped. While these efforts start with strongly establishing their current market, they look forward to progressively building partnerships which will enable them to scale broadly into new areas.
You can learn more about GICMED
More News & Events
Skip scroller content
From Bedside to Big Data: A Nurse’s Transition to Health Informatics
In today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, the intersection of clinical expertise and technological innovation is where the most significant impacts are made. My journey from nursing to health informatics is a testament to this shift—a journey that began with hands-on patient care and led me to the forefront of digital health solutions. This transition wasn’t […]
African Women Innovating in Health Care
This year, FemSTEM Africa engaged over 200 health innovators and enthusiasts through a series of events, concluding in a pitch competition and interactions with seasoned entrepreneurs. The five-part event series was organized by the University of Toronto’s Health Innovation Hub (H2i) in partnership with Social Enterprise (SE) Ghana, Sustineri Attorneys, supported by funding from the […]
Apply for the Mastercard Foundation Doctor of Public Health Scholarship
How to Apply: Step One Prospective applicants must first consult the admission requirements for the Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) program of study. The link above will guide you in exploring this program. If you meet the academic requirements of this program, please follow through to step two. Step Two Review the recording of the […]
Attaining Connected Healthcare through a National Data Platform
About the Speaker (Dr. Job Nyangena): Dr. Job Nyangena is a medical doctor and seasoned digital health professional with a distinguished career spanning over a decade. Combining a strong foundation in medicine with a deep understanding of technology, Dr. Nyangena has been instrumental in shaping the digital health landscape both in Kenya and internationally. With […]
A Model for International Partnerships: A Case Study of TAAAC
The University of Toronto and Addis Ababa University are pleased to invite you to the next episode of the Health in Africa series discussing A Model for International Partnerships.
Venture Spotlight: BetaLife Health
BetaLife Health uses artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize blood supply management across Africa. Their platform uses predictive analytics to optimize blood inventory levels, distribution logistics and donor engagement, thereby improving the timeliness and availability of blood for transfusions.
Venture Spotlight: Remedius Mobile Health
Remedius Mobile Health aims to combat the identified problems by leveraging telemedicine through the Remedius Live platform. They seek to provide fast virtual appointment scheduling with doctors and specialists at affordable rates of about five dollars and provide comprehensive care to chronically ill patients. This is executed through an integral network of facilities that provide physical care to these patients if need arises.
Venture Spotlight: Powerstove Energy
Powerstove designs and manufactures smart smoke-free cookstoves that also self-generate electricity for users to charge their mobile phones and power home appliances using proprietary renewable bio-pellets as fuel. These sustainable, mosquito repellent bio-pellets are produced from post-harvest crops and wood waste.