HealthTech Arkansas and the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) have partnered to work together with healthcare researchers and early-stage companies to drive innovation in clinical environments. The Center for Advancing Innovation launches startups around promising inventions in order to unleash life-changing inventions with exponential impact; create knowledge-based jobs and new markets; boost the economy and engage diverse communities, including addressing economic inequality.
“This collaboration with the Center for Advancing Innovation has incredible potential for both organizations, as each of us has strong, well-developed programs for advancing healthcare innovation,” said Jeff Stinson, director of HealthTech Arkansas. "We’re particularly excited about CAI’s Innovate Children’s Health Challenge, as it ties in directly with our innovation programming at Arkansas Children’s, Inc., an important HealthTech Arkansas partner. We have no doubt we’ll be able to improve the quality of pediatric health in Arkansas as a direct result of this collaboration.”
The Innovate Children’s Health Challenge is an open innovation contest to advance high-impact solutions to improve children’s health globally. The Innovate Children’s Health Challenge will launch over 15 startups to commercialize promising therapeutics, diagnostics, prognostics, medical devices, and digital health solutions that could potentially work with HealthTech Arkansas and its provider partners across the state of Arkansas.
“CAI will have the opportunity to expand its network of healthcare-based startups and work with an accelerator program that provides deep, valuable clinical engagement for its startups,” said Rosemarie Truman, CAI’s Founder and CEO. “By working with HealthTech Arkansas, our startups will be able to gain access to a world-class ecosystem of galvanized hospitals to pilot their products in a clinical setting. Gaining access to Arkansas Children’s Hospital will be pivotal for our Innovate Children’s Health Challenge startups.”
As part of the partnership, each organization will exchange directories of healthcare startups, investors, and resources, and collaboratively work together to advance new technologies towards commercialization. This effort aligns with HealthTech Arkansas’s mission to identify and bring superior healthcare technologies to Arkansas to benefit the state’s providers.
Applications for HealthTech Arkansas’s 2020 cohort closed on June 30, 2020, and the program is currently reviewing the almost 200 applications received this year. The cohort selections will be announced in September, and the program will kick off in October. The program is seeking companies in three categories: digital health and software, medical devices, and diagnostic platforms. Each company will receive $75,000 of investment capital and is guaranteed at least two pilot projects with Arkansas healthcare providers.
CAI’s Innovate Children’s Health Challenge is still open for entry, and we welcome startups and/or entrepreneurs to enter at http://www.innovatechildrenshealth.org.
ABOUT HEALTHTECH ARKANSAS
HealthTech Arkansas is an accelerator and early-stage investment fund that recruits worldwide for the most accomplished startups in the areas of digital health, medical devices, and diagnostic platforms. Those companies accepted into the program are guaranteed at least two pilot projects or clinical trials from among eleven leading hospitals, health systems, and physician practices in Arkansas. HealthTech Arkansas is the only program in the U.S. to guarantee pilot projects and clinical trials with healthcare providers. More information can be found at HealthTechArkansas.com.
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR ADVANCING INNOVATION
The Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) is a global public-private partnership, non-profit focused on creating a virtuous circle of innovation and driving growth breakthroughs through novel, creative paradigms and models. CAI's mission is to accelerate and increase the volume of technology commercialization to ignite entrepreneurship, bolster the global economy, and maximize the potential of promising inventions. CAI’s award-winning challenge-based accelerator, rigorous evidence-based due diligence, and capital-efficient lean management models serve to hyper-accelerate “gazelle” high-performing startups for outsized investor returns. Named as the “Tinder for Startups” by Nature, the “Kickstarter for IP” by Wired, and a “Powerful Innovation Toolkit” by the White House, CAI launched 300+ startups and trained 3500+ entrepreneurs in 100+ cities worldwide since 2014. For additional information about CAI, please visit thecenterforadvancinginnovation.org.