India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre(HIC) has virtually announced the winners of the Innovation Challenge.

The move aimed to identify and support innovative solutions that can impact the treatment of non-communicable and communicable diseases and help regress critical problems in the healthcare delivery landscape of India. 

These winning solutions were announced through a web conference by Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Thursday. Representatives from the 14 winning start-ups were also present at the inaugural event to exchange their vision that could improve the healthcare ecosystem in the country.

The innovation challenge included a rigorous evaluation process by a panel of experts from AIIMS Delhi, AIIMS Jodhpur, ICMR, The Swedish Trade Commissioners office to India, AstraZeneca, AIM, C-CAMP and other partners. 

This committee had shortlisted 14 compelling solutions including that of Dr. Aakash Kohli, Aarogya AI innovations, Adiuvo Diagnostics, Dr. Amit Goyal, Dr. Bharat Choudhary, Biofi Medical Healthcare India, Blackfrog Technologies, Dozee (Turtle Shell Technologies), Dr. Gautam Ram Choudhary, Janitri Innovations, Jeevtronics, Qritive, Qure.ai Technologies, and ThermaiScan Technology AB.

In fact,the India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre is a collaboration between the Swedish Trade Commissioner's Office, AIIMS,New Delhi ,AIIMS, Jodhpur. It is designed to enable and implement the shared vision of developing innovative solutions aiming to solve various healthcare problems that exist in the country. 

As a part of the initiative, the start-ups as well as the partner organisations will work towards the shared vision of propelling and integrating innovative healthcare solutions into the ecosystem to bring about progress in the way healthcare is delivered or managed currently.

Anders Tofte, Swedish Trade Commissioner to India said, "Through this initiative, we aim to enable cross country collaboration between innovators for effective exchange of knowledge and best practices between both the countries. Through the India Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre, start-ups will be able to co-create, explore solutions from multiple angles and be able to scale-up across borders."

 The winning start-ups will now work with the India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre platform which will enable faster scale-up, by providing them access to cross-country mentorship, guidance on funding, and ability to ideate with like-minded innovator, access to state-of-the-art incubation centre located within AIIMS Jodhpur campus, their lab facilities and beyond. 

On boarded start-ups can also avail the incubation facility at NASSCOM, Bengaluru. The challenge focused on innovative solutions in 8 challenge areas including Digital Tools/Platforms - Med-Tech, Tele-Medicine, and Artificial Intelligence backed solutions to support new ways of working to improve the efficiencies of healthcare systems as they manage the pandemic.