On November 15th, participants in the Yale Sustainable Health Initiative Venture Development Program (VDP) pitched ideas for innovative global health ventures as part of the Kalyanpur-Maheshwari Grant for Global Health Innovation Pitch Competition.
The winning group, Respond Crisis Translation, was selected by a panel of judges based on innovativeness, quality of their pitch, ongoing engagement with the VDP, and demonstration of impact. Respond received t $5,000 to support their ongoing work.
The Sustainable Health Initiative (SHI) supports students at Yale in exploring entrepreneurial solutions to global health challenges impacting low- and middle-income countries and under-resourced populations in the US. SHI partners with the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (CITY) to support the Venture Development Program, which helps students conceptualize, develop, and expand their own global health innovations. The VDP builds a collaborative community for passionate student innovators by providing student-led groups with resources such as skill-building sessions, mentoring, and networking opportunities.
Teams participating in the VDP compete for the Kalyanpur-Maheshwari Grant for Global Health Innovation, an award of $5,000 given to a student-led initiative that demonstrates innovation and the potential to impact underserved communities. The Kalyanpur-Maheshwari Grant is funded by Yale alumni Dr. Arjun Kalyanpur and Dr. Sunita Maheshwari. It is awarded once per semester. Kalyanpur and Maheshwari also serve as mentors-in-residence for the VDP, drawing upon their experience in global health innovation and entrepreneurship to provide Yale students with consultative mentoring.
“Our purpose in creating this grant is to give back to our alma mater, Yale, while at the same time providing a motivational opportunity for startups in the public health domain, in particular those that are in the space of healthcare technology and innovation, and that function with a global worldview and approach,” said Kalyanpur. “This is intended to mirror our own experience of using our education and experience gained at Yale, for which we are deeply grateful, to create an organization or group that leverages technology to deliver diagnostic support to hospitals across the globe.”
Fatema Basrai, managing director of the Sustainable Health Initiative, emphasizes the importance of creating a community so student entrepreneurs and innovators can receive support while working toward their vision. She says the benefits of structured guidance shone through the students’ pitches, as their ideas demonstrated impressive growth throughout the three-month program.
In total, nine teams participated in the pitch competition. The fall 2024 winner, Respond Crisis Translation, is a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that provides translation services for migrants and refugees for whom language is a barrier to accessing support. Jack Carew, a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, serves as Respond’s Director of Academic Partnerships and Public Health.
According to Respond, hundreds of millions of people are denied basic human rights and essential services because of a lack of translation services. Language rights violations can lead to adverse medical or legal outcomes, such as wrongful denial of asylum claims.
Their mission is to provide around-the-clock services, working directly with over 600 non-profit partners in addition to providing personalized support to individual refugees and asylum-seekers. Respond currently provides trauma-informed services such as translation, interpretation, proofreading and editing, and transcription in over 180 languages, including sign languages.
Respond also works to create job opportunities for multilingual individuals, many of whom identify as refugees, asylum-seekers, deportees, and/or Indigenous persons.
“In the world we live in today, Respond’s work has the potential to make a tremendous impact on refugees, and SHI is proud to play a small part in that,” said Basrai.