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 — Selected innovations will receive up to $150,000 CAD that address health effects of climate change in low-and middle-income countries —  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGrHLCTQ-N0 Dubai, 3 December 2023 — Grand Challenges Canada announced the nomination of over 40 new innovations for awards to address the impacts of climate change and health in low- and middle-income countries. The announcement was made by Grand Challenges Canada CEO Dr. Karlee Silver…Cameroon Youth School Tech Incubator (CAYSTI) (Cameroon): Mobile application to increase the use of indigenous foods and nutrition education in Cameroon.  Carleton University (Canada, South Africa, Senegal): Design of emergency infectious disease response treatment centres to respond to outbreaks exacerbated by climate change.  Centre Pasteur du Cameroun (Cameroon): An early warning system for the surveillance…The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) (Canada, Pakistan): Addressing climate change-related mental health effects among women and children in rural Pakistan.  Integrated Youth Empowerment Center (IYEC) (Cameroon): Promotion of water and sanitation at community level.  International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Kenya): Creation of an AI-based digital advisory system to predict the risk, propagation,…

…the time of publication was completing his IMBA at the Schulich School of Business, York University We have recently launched our 2015 Summer Student Program. This is an excellent opportunity to look back at our team of students from 2014. At the end of August, another exciting and productive work term for the Grand Challenges Canada 2014 Summer Student Team ended. When we started on this journey in May, we had each taken some time to express what we…Summer Student Team:   Elizabeth Munn – B.Sc in Life Sciences (Queen’s University) @Eliza_Munn This summer, I worked primarily with the Global Mental Health team. This core group, like the other staff at Grand Challenges Canada, provided the kind of environment that encouraged students like myself to take the initiative, be creative and really engage-…to data management. Amna Manzoor – 3rd Year BBA Finance (Schulich School of Business) @amna_manzoor16 This summer I supported the Finance team through an array of activities. Short term assignments included processing accounts payable, assisting in monitoring operational budget spending and analyzing budget variances. On the other hand, long term assignments consisted of conducting spot check audits…

Alyse Schrecongost is an Independent Water, Sanitation and Health Consultant, and was most recently a Program Officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Toilet Team”. Sam Parker is Director of Shell Foundation and former CEO of Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP). A good toilet is hard to find. This is especially true for women and children in the world’s rapidly growing urban settlements or “slums” where sewer networks are missing, and latrines—when they are available—fill up fast. In Kigali, Rwanda an estimated 700,000 of the city’s 1.2 million residents live in informal settlements; this is not unlike many African country capitals struggling to…make them work. Kigali’s residents know that investing in a household latrine brings their family dignity, personal safety and comfort. In Kigali and around the world, markets, promotions, and programs are starting to help residents invest in the “seats” they need and want for their families.  Ensuring these toilets remain safe and functional, however, is…

Arshia Saxena (she/her) Team: Social Finance What was your favorite project that you worked on, and what is a key takeaway from that experience? My favorite project to work on this summer was the Financial Statement tracker. I worked with many deal leads and was able to gain first-hand experience in reaching out to external…summer, I had the opportunity to work on the monthly Grand Challenges Canada newsletter. With over 20,000 recipients, the newsletter is a great way to provide an update of the month's activities, events, and opportunities in our organization and its ecosystem. I was responsible for collecting content, drafting language, finding media, and putting it all together in a newsletter layout. Throughout the full experience of producing and releasing content to a specific…of the highlights of my experience was collaborating with the child development team on a portfolio analysis for the Saving Brains initiative, which seeks bold ideas to promote health and nutrition, provide enrichment and nurturing, and protect against maltreatment—three essential components every child needs for healthy development. My role involved filtering project data, analyzing the…

Next time you open the water faucet, think for a minute about how much we take that flow of drinkable water for granted. If you are reading this in a high-resource country like Canada, the water that pours out of the tap is clean and perfectly safe to drink. Not only that, the water has been delivered right to your door. It is stored and transported in a safe, cost-effective and efficient way, and we…policy or plan for effective and sustainable provision of safe water and sanitation. Clean drinking water is a key determinant of public health. Water-related diseases are a significant contributor to the global burden of illness. Improved access to clean water can reduce diarrhoea and waterborne diseases by at least 25%. Securing access to clean water…Ghana is struggling with high rates of non-functional rural water systems, which lead to poor public health. Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana) is setting up mobile phone technology that will be used to improve the spare parts supply chain and will also pool funds for financing capital maintenance. Text to Change Mobile…

…of Toronto. Ophira is an innovator in the Stars in Global Health program (Round 2). Tuesday, February 4th, is World Cancer Day. This day has special meaning for the millions of people worldwide whose lives have been touched by cancer. So it’s a good time to ask ourselves: How has cancer affected me personally? Or impacted those I love? In Canada, one in three of us will develop cancer in our lifetime, and…can be effectively and cheaply treated if detected early. For those with advanced cancer, inadequate pain control can and will become an injustice of the past. The upcoming Disease Control Priorities (DCP-3) volume on cancer will describe some of the evidence for these approaches, with specific relevance to low- and middle-income countries. And, thanks to…expected –our CHWs interviewed over 22,000 women. Compared to CHWs without smart phones (Group 3), those with smart phones (Group 1) were more efficient and effective in promoting breast health and encouraging women with a breast cancer symptom to go to the clinic or local public hospital. CHWs with extra “navigation” training (Group 2) were…to dispel myths, share knowledge and make a real impact to close the cancer divide! Find out what’s happening in your community this World Cancer Day and sign the World Cancer Declaration! We encourage you to post your questions and comments about this blog on our Grand Challenges Canada Facebook page, and on Twitter @gchallenges…

In our last blog post, we showed how the Grand Challenges Approach can help the world to solve complex global problems. The Grand Challenges approach was introduced over 100 years ago by David Hilbert to solve problems in mathematics. In 2003, Bill Gates applied it to global health and, in the past decade, the approach has matured, providing a platform for different groups from government, academe, civil society and the private sector to work together to solve common challenges. Grand Challenges are about solving problems, stimulating innovation and capturing the…support and enable citizen engagement and government responsiveness. It will be particularly important to engage emerging economies and private sector actors in support of the achievement of significant development goals. Third, the Grand Challenges Approach can help to mobilize resources. Especially in the current age of austerity in public budgets the world over, it has…

The Zika virus, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, has become an epidemic designated by the World Health Organization as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The effects of the disease are becoming increasingly known:  in children born to infected mothers, it is linked to microcephaly, an abnormality associated with impaired brain development. Because its spread is largely confined to low- and middle-income countries, it disproportionately…is the type of high-stakes problem that the Grand Challenges approach is well-suited to solve. At the core of this approach are bold ideas with big impact. For Grand Challenges Canada, this means supporting on-the-ground innovators and entrepreneurs from low- and middle-income countries. Other important pillars of the approach are investment in high-risk science, smart…requires intensive community engagement.  It is currently one of the most promising innovative technologies to fight Zika. Grand Challenges Canada In May 2016, Grand Challenges Canada teamed up with the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech) and the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Global Health to host the Zika Innovation Awards, which granted $25,000 CAD…

Ammara Niyaz is an Investment Analyst with the Transition to Scale program at Grand Challenges Canada, identifying deals and conducting financial and operational due diligence of potential investments. Follow Ammara on Twitter: @ammaraniyaz “An estimated 663 million people drink water from unimproved sources, and millions more drink contaminated water from improved sources.” - Dr. Margaret…there are more mobile devices than humans, yet 750 million people (roughly 1 in 9 people) lack access to safe water. It is, in other words, easier for people to access mobile phones than clean water.  In 2010, the United Nation General Assembly declared that clean drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realization…although there are clear economic gains, governments have not committed the resources necessary to improve access to clean and safe water. [caption id="attachment_13381" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Wello’s WaterWheel, supported by Grand Challenges Canada, transports 3-5x the amount of water possible as compared to traditional methods – in a single trip! Photo credit: Cynthia Koenig[/caption] In order to…consideration of the entire value chain and process regarding water purification takes place. This involves factors such as the manufacturing process, distribution, after-sales service, user feedback, product design, etc. Grand Challenges Canada has supported innovators that are identifying solutions to solve this problem at various levels, such as the community, family, and individual level. Below…