2021 Bay Area Global Health Innovation Challenge

The Bay Area Global Health Innovation Challenge is a global competition offering student teams from universities worldwide the opportunity to accelerate their ideas for innovative low-cost, high-impact, and scalable global health solutions.

For the final pitch event, the top teams are invited to present their innovations to a panel of judges composed of potential investors, philanthropists, and experts in health, design, and global development, as well as the opportunity to participate in mentoring workshops with leaders from our partner organizations, and network with their peers from around the globe. These teams compete for the grand prize of $10,000 in seed funding, in addition to unique mentorship, idea development, and exposure opportunities.

The Bay Area Global Health Innovation Challenge is a competition hosted by the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health and Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health in partnership with the UCSF Institute for Global Health Science, UC Davis, the Bay Area Global Health Alliance, and the HealthRoots Foundation for Global Health. We offer student teams from universities worldwide the opportunity to present their ideas for low-cost, high-impact, and scalable global health innovations.

Every year, following an open call for submissions, the top teams are invited to present their innovations to a panel of judges composed of potential investors, philanthropists, and experts in health, design, and global development, as well as the opportunity to participate in mentoring workshops with leaders from our partner organizations, and network with their peers from around the globe. These teams compete for the grand prize of $10,000 in seed funding, and unique mentorship, idea development, and exposure opportunities.

This year’s Challenge partners are world leaders in health, design, tech, and impact investing, who support the Challenge and participating teams in a variety of ways — offering team mentorship and guidance, expert submission reviewers, panelists and workshop leaders at the Challenge in Spring 2021, and more. Stay tuned for an announcement sharing details about our partners.

Past judges have included investors from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the founding CEO of Yahoo!, the Chief Strategy Officer of PATH, the President of Global Development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Product Manager for Health at Facebook, designers at IDEO.org, the President and CEO of Bioness, Inc. as well as board members from the Global Health Research Foundation and the International Aids Vaccine Initiative. By participating in the Challenge, student teams will receive the following:

1. Exposure and sponsorship: Aside from the $10,000 grand prize to the winning team, all finalist teams will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas to high-level judges who are interested in supporting student teams who win them over with funding, mentorship, and other in-kind support opportunities. 
2. Mentorship and networking: Finalist teams have the opportunity to network, not only with their peers from around the globe, but also with top Bay Area social investors, philanthropists, and educators who have committed to mentoring student teams through a series of workshops, talks, and one-on-one networking events to be held during the competition.
3. Expert feedback: Ideas will be evaluated by top researchers and scientists in the field of global health hailing from UC Berkeley, Stanford, UCSF, and other Bay Area schools, as well as technology and industry partners.