Making More Health Accelerator 2023

Social and Business Co-Creation, Fostering win-win collaborations

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The Making More Health Business Accelerator, is a structured business growth program targeted at social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions in the health sector. The program offers two engagement phases.

Phase 1, called the “Pilot Phase”, runs for 12 months and focuses on supporting entrepreneurs to:

  • a) identify strategic challenges and/or opportunities related to the growth, sustainability and impact of their social enterprises
  • b) co-create and test relevant solutions.

Phase 2, called the “Scale-up Phase” also runs for 12 months and focuses on supporting participants to scale up successful solutions from the first phase of engagement. In both phases, participating entrepreneurs are provided with access to technical support from Boehringer Ingelheim employees, strategic networks, financial resources, and a platform to collaborate, learn and engage with fellow social entrepreneurs and other ecosystem actors.

Overview

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June 20, 2024
OrganizerAshoka
Website Visit website
Targets Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda
Sectors Healthcare, Healthcare providers and services, HealthTech
Partner Program Making More Health Accelerator 2022 image of Screenshot At
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Background

Since 2011, Ashoka – one of the world’s largest networks of social entrepreneurs and Boehringer Ingelheim – a family-owned world leading and research-driven Pharmaceutical company, have collaborated to co-create and grow the global initiative – Making More Health (MMH).  Making More Health brings together actors from the healthcare ecosystem, including social entrepreneurs, corporations, impact investors, government agencies, foundations, and local stakeholders, among others, to engage and collaborate on ways to increase access to healthcare for underserved populations around the world.

Focus areas

The accelerator broadly focuses on supporting social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions aimed at advancing access to healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa. Solutions may be both in the animal or human health field. The specific countries from which we are currently selecting participants are Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Ghana. 

Human health

Human healthcare care solutions of interest broadly include any innovation that is tackling barriers to awareness, access, affordability, and availability of healthcare services in underserved communities. Of particular interest are innovations that are addressing non-communicable (NCDS) as the main area of focus or as a core part of a broader intervention scope. NCDS include diabetes, hypertension, myocardial infarction, stroke, respiratory disease, and cancers.

Animal health

Animal Health is a critical part of healthcare, and we are interested in supporting the most innovative solutions tackling barriers to awareness, access, affordability, and availability of animal healthcare. Of particular interest are solutions at the last mile as well as those tackling issues related to human-animal transmission.

Program criteria

You should apply for the program if you have an innovative human or animal health solution that fits the description provided above and if you meet the criteria below. 

  1. Legal Entity: Company limited by guarantee, Limited liability company, NGO 
  2. Age: At least three years of operation 
  3. Sector: Human or animal health related.
  4. Country of operation: Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.
  5. Revenue: At least USD 100K in annual sales revenue.
  6. Impact: Evidence of social impact with clearly defined impact metrics

Benefits

Knowledge Access: 

The program offers participants multiple opportunities for professional growth and development in their entrepreneurial journey. Includes in-person and online workshops and seminars on topics about operations, systems change, replication and transfer, social finance, among others.   

Technical expertise: 

Participants have access to experienced employees at Boehringer Ingelheim who volunteer their time to provide hands-on technical support across a variety of professional disciplines. Engagement with BI employees may take place virtually or in-person through an Executive in Residence program that has experienced executives placed within the social entrepreneurs’ organizations for between 2-4 weeks to work on specific aspects of the projects. Additionally, the program engages a number of consultants to offer tailored expert support to participants in areas such as investor engagement, communications and pitching.

Strategic networks:

Accelerator participants become part of an ever growing and closely knit community of ecosystem actors including impact investors, foundations, philanthropists, government agencies, corporate executives, social entrepreneurs, experts and multinational healthcare companies all committed to improving health care access for humans and animals across Africa. Successful applicants will also be able to tap into the newly launched Making More Health access network that will potentially leverage the expert engagement and support between the social entrepreneurs and the Boehringer Ingelheim employees.

Financial and Investor access support

The program provides each participant with a grant of 50k Euro for pilot implementation, with the possibility of additional scale up funds at the end of a successful pilot. Participants also receive expert-led investment readiness coaching and support before and after the program to facilitate access to third party investors. In addition, the program gives program participants a platform to  showcase their innovations and engage a growing community of impact investors at MMH’s annual investor showcase event as well as other external investor access events. Additionally, entrants into the business accelerator community will have opportunities to apply for extra funding via the just launched Boehringer Ingelheim Social Engagement Fund. 

Business Collaboration  

Where there is a timely and strategic fit between Boehringer Ingelheim and an accelerator participant, there is the potential for a strategic business collaboration to be formed with the promise of significant long-term benefits for both organizations.

Selection process

Activity

Timeline

Submission of applications 

14th November 2022 – 13th January2023

One-on-one interviews 

14th January 2023 – 20th February, 2023

Due diligence and site visit

1st February 2023 – 28th February, 2023

Panel interview

15th March, 2023

Announcement of
successful applicants.   

17th March, 2023

Info sessions

To learn more about the program and if you have any questions, you are invited to attend any of the virtual information sessions that will take place during the open call for applications. See below for details.

Information session 1:
  • Date: 22nd November 
  • Time: 10:00am-11:30am (EAT) 
  • Zoom link: Register
Information session 2:
  • Date: 15th December
  • Time: 10:00am-11:30am (EAT) 
  • Zoom link: Register

FAQs

An entrepreneurial leader who is driven to solve a social problem through either a for-profit or non-profit enterprise. The accelerator primarily targets social entrepreneurs with for-profit enterprise models which we also refer to as social enterprises

$100K in annual revenue is one of our basic criteria and social enterprises generating this amount or more will be prioritized. A rare exception may be made for social enterprises that a close to hitting the $100K mark and have a sure path to getting there in the near-term.

We are primarily interested in social enterprises generating between $100K and $500K in annual revenues. This represents a class of business that is neither at the earliest stage of start up nor an advanced stage that would diminish the value of our offering. We believe we are able to add the most value to social enterprises stage between early start-up and growth stage.

 

As long as you have operations in one of our countries of interest i.e Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana or Rwanda, even if you are headquartered elsewhere, you can apply.

 

Beyond financial sustainability and growth of the social enterprises in the accelerator, we are keenly interested and invest in their capacity to deliver and grow their impact. After two years of engagement, what we see is businesses that have expanded their market reach, increased their revenues, build stronger teams, improved the efficiency of their operations and increased the social impact they are delivering.

 

We look at social impact on three levels. On one level, we look at the number of beneficiaries of the services or products a business produces. On another level, we look at qualitative metrics such as the economic and healthcare benefits generated from the use of delivered products and services. On a systemic level, we are interested in seeing how the businesses in the accelerator are contributing towards improved access, quality, awareness and affordability of care.

The accelerator provides technical support through co-creation to businesses in the accelerator but does not maintain any interest in any IP that is generated through co-creation engagements.

 

No. All financial support provided through the accelerator is done in the form of a grant.

Collaboration is a key component of the accelerator’s philosophy. We expect the businesses in the program to collaborate and support each other to do better. As such, were it is clear that a business does not embody this collaborative spirit, they we will not be recruited into the accelerator. On the other hand companies in a similar space that are open to working together and collaborating may be recruited into the program.

Engagement only changes but does not stop after two years. Engagement is most intense during the first 12 months of the accelerator and then slows down after that. We have various activities, support services and events that are open to companies in the program regardless of what cohort they were a part of.

Although this is extremely rare, it has happened. The reasons for taking such action have to be pretty serious like misrepresentation during the selection process or when it becomes evident that the commitment and/or capacity needed to engage in the program is lacking in a business.

Use of funds is limited to the project co-created and implemented during the accelerator. The specific allocation of funds within the project is decided by the social entrepreneur.

Most of the work involved in the accelerator is connected to day-to-day operations. As such we require a full-time project manager for the accelerator related activities. With a full-time project manager in place, other members of the team can put in a few hours a week/day as needed.

Yes. A non-founding team member can be the point person for engagement in the accelerator. What is critical though is that this person is a senior enough to make strategic decisions.

As long as your innovation can add value to the healthcare value chain, we are interested in it. We have innovations in our portfolio in fintech, data analytics, logistics and supply chain management, education, and waste management. What they have in common is a clear and deliberate link to healthcare. They either increase affordability of care, quality of care, availability of care or accessibility of care for humans, animals or both.

 

Contact us

For inquiries, contact:

Nassir Katuramu 
nkaturamu@ashoka.org

Team

Activity