Sixteen health business start-ups have been awarded funds by the Mastercard Foundation Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The initiative, by the Health Entrepreneurship pillar of the Collaborative led by Prof. Wilberforce Owusu-Ansah, initially received 70 applications which were subsequently trimmed down to 30.

The Health Entrepreneurship pillar is one of the three pillars of the Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative.

The pillar aims to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and culture that supports entrepreneurs to create meaningful innovations and employment opportunities in the health sector. Through the interventions, promising entrepreneurs will be nurtured to build resilient health ventures.

Already, four hundred students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have received entrepreneurial training in sustainable business start-ups.

The Collaborative therefore organized a 3-day orientation management and regulatory training for the successful start-ups.

“On the first day, we got all the regulators together, that is FDA, GRA to advise them on some of the things they would need to get their products certified.

“On the second day, we took them through financial management training and on the third day, we had one-on-one with the businesses to understand them in their comprehensive form. At the end of the day, we had an investment plan for all the businesses,” Prof. Wilberforce Owusu-Ansah explained.

The objectives of the Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative with funding from Mastercard Foundation seeks to build and strengthen the capacity of healthcare students and professionals to meet the growing demand for Primary Health Care (PHC) in the health sector; enable students to acquire advanced skills in Africa across a broad range of disciplines critical for sustainable health sector growth and transformation; Optimize entrepreneurial ecosystems in and through universities in Africa to launch and scale health start-ups to create jobs; Develop a dynamic, sustainable, long-term network of leading African universities, alumni, government agencies, health care start-ups, and private sector partners working together to create dignified and fulfilling jobs across health ecosystems.

The project will further develop a dynamic, sustainable, long-term network of leading African universities, alumni and government agencies, healthcare start-ups, and private sector partners working together to create dignified and fulfilling jobs across health ecosystems in the next ten years.

KNUST is one of the eight partners of the Higher Education Collaborative in Health with the aim to contribute to all three pillars of the health strategy: Health Employment, Health Entrepreneurship, and Health Ecosystems.