Next time you open the water faucet, think for a minute about how much we take that flow of drinkable water for granted. If you are reading this in a high-resource country like Canada, the water that pours out of the tap is clean and perfectly safe to drink. Not only that, the water has been delivered right to your door. It is stored and transported in a safe, cost-effective and efficient way, and we focus on conserving our precious water for future generations.
The Phone Oximeter is making game-changing solutions available to those who need them the most, all while keeping the focus on the beneficiaries – in this case, mothers and unborn babies.
March 8th is International Women’s Day. We celebrate the economic, political, and social achievements of women, but it is also a moment to raise awareness about the many struggles of women worldwide. Family violence (often a synonym for violence against women) is – unfortunately – still a prevalent universal phenomenon. Our CEO, Dr. Peter A. Singer walks you through Grand Challenges Canada’s portfolio on Family Violence.
Dr. Shaun Morris is one of our innovators in the Stars in Global Health (Round 4) program with a project called ‘A toolkit to save newborn lives’, implemented in Pakistan. He started believing in the power of social media when the video he made to support his grant proposal led to a rewarding business partnership.
Barlow was leading a session to challenge Saving Lives at Birth innovators to think like investors about their products and services. Each team was asked to consider the risks associated with their innovation and identify which would be the most concerning from an investor’s point of view.
Context analysis is a method to analyze the environment in which innovations must be utilized by users and start-up efforts must operate. This is just one of the tools teams learn to effectively measure risks, test assumptions, secure resources, and build relationships with the individuals and institutions that will be the recipients of their innovations.
Twelve teams of grantees have flown in from all over the U.S. and as far away as Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal and Zambia to develop their innovations for global impact. From preventing and treating preeclampsia to delivering neo-natal intensive care, the grantees’ innovations must succeed for the poorest mothers and infants in developing countries.
The third annual Saving Lives at Birth DevelopmentXChange will take place at the end of this month in Washington, DC, and we can’t wait to see what the 2013 finalists will bring to the table. This year, the DevelopmentXChange will welcome 53 finalists who have responded to the request for applications from the Saving Lives at Birth challenge.
Common mental disorders are becoming widespread in our world and now account for 13% of the global disease burden.
As many as 200 million children fail to reach their full developmental potential from exposure to risk factors–malnutrition, infection, poor management of pregnancy, birth complications, and lack of stimulation and nurturing–in the first 1,000 days of life…