On March 28th, seven teams in the YIGH Sustainable Health Initiative Venture Development Program (VDP) pitched their global health innovations at the Kalyanpur-Maheshwari Global Health Innovation Pitch Competition. Ideas that were pitched ranged from innovations to improve healthy eating for children to battling disinformation in public health.
The winning team, Presixion, is a point-of-care, rapid diagnostic solution, run by a multidisciplinary team of experts with experience in bioinformatics, computer science, engineering, business strategy, and medicine. The venture started in response to the urgent need highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic for rapid identification of infectious diseases. Presixion’s technology, which focuses on respiratory diseases such as COVID-19, RSV, influenza A, and B, is particularly geared towards improving public health outcomes by enabling standardized, efficient pathogen detection. The technology is complemented by an optional app for health monitoring, enhancing user engagement and data tracking.
The team received a $5,000 Kalyanpur-Maheshwari Grant for Global Health Innovation. The grant is funded by Yale alumni Dr. Arjun Kalyanpur and Dr. Sunita Maheshwari who serve as mentors-in-residence for the VDP.
We're honored and grateful to participate in the SHI program and win the Kalyanpur-Maheshwari Grant. This venture is very personal for us, and the support we've received has been catalytic towards our mission in aiding infectious disease monitoring and saving lives at the community level.
Ryan Bose-Roy, BS/BA '24
The YIGH Sustainable Health Initiative Venture Development Program supports Yale students and trainees in exploring entrepreneurial solutions to global health challenges in low- and middle-income countries and under-resourced and marginalized populations in the U.S. In partnership with the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (CITY), the VDP further develops student ventures through conceptualizing and expanding their health innovations. Teams that were part of the VDP received support from SHI Fellows, Cathy Jian and Bianca Taya, with weekly coaching calls to achieve their milestones and prepare and refine their pitches.
Judges for the Pitch Competition included Emily Sheldon and Sam Hayek. Emily Sheldon, MPH, is an SHI Mentor-in Residence as well as the co-founder and CEO of the African Health Innovation Center. She also serves as Associate Director of the Office of Wellness Education at the UC Davis Health System and School of Medicine in Sacramento. Sam Hayek, MBA, is a mechanical engineer, banker, organizational consultant, and coach. A Fellow at Morse College, Mr. Hayek actively supports Yale innovation initiatives, including the annual healthcare hackathon with the Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology and Startup Yale.
As a judge in SHI's Spring Term competition I was impressed with the rigor and maturity of the teams' innovative ideas as well as their highly developed presentation and communication skills. Needless to say, it was a pleasure to see the students' enthusiasm and feel their optimistic energies as they pitched a wide array of highly sophisticated start-ups aimed at furthering noble causes using state-of-art technologies.
Sam Hayek, MBA
On April 3rd and 4th, three VDP teams, Picksy.Quest, Project Hope, and Respond Crisis Translation, will compete at Startup Yale for the Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education . The Thorne Prize is a $25,000 award given to a student-led venture focused on social innovation in health or education for underserved communities in the United States or low-resource countries. Startup Yale is Yale’s biggest entrepreneurship event, featuring practitioners, investors, and community leaders to reimagine the future.