Beyond the prize money on offer at Friday’s grand finale, Cimas Health Group says the real prize for Healthathon 3.0 finalists is the chance to have their innovations tested and potentially rolled out within the company’s own healthcare operations.
Cimas Health Group Chief Information Officer Foster Akaketwa said the competition, which culminates this Friday at the Group’s Borrowdale head office under the theme “Reimagining Healthcare Through Disruptive Innovation,” was designed to give promising ideas a route beyond the event itself, through further validation, incubation, partnerships or pilot programmes.
“Our Healthathon is about identifying innovations that have the potential to create real healthcare impact,” he said. “So, beyond the monetary prizes, participants stand to gain something even more valuable, the opportunity to have their innovations considered for piloting with Cimas Health Group and to contribute to shaping the future of healthcare in Zimbabwe.”
Ten teams, drawn from an initial pool of 372 submissions, will present refined solutions to a judging panel made up of Cimas leadership and external experts from healthcare, technology and innovation backgrounds. The teams progressed through successive rounds, from a Top 20 to a Top 15, with each of the Top 15 assigned a mentor to stress-test their concepts against real healthcare workflows before the final selection.
Akaketwa said the ultimate measure of the Healthathon’s success would not be the volume of entries or the outcome of Friday’s contest, but whether any of the ideas eventually change how people experience healthcare in Zimbabwe.
“For us, the real success of Healthathon will be when an idea developed through this challenge moves beyond the competition and begins making a measurable difference in people’s lives,” he said. “That is ultimately what innovation should be about, and it is closely aligned with our purpose of inspiring healthier communities.”
The winning team will receive three thousand five hundred United States dollars, with two thousand and one thousand five hundred dollars going to the second and third-placed teams respectively. This year’s submissions covered diagnostics, preventive healthcare, artificial intelligence, rural health access, rehabilitation, data protection and emergency response.
