MedAtlas, founded by Public Health and Health Systems doctoral student Margaret Mutumba, has won the Concept $5K challenge for Spring 2021.
Concept $5K is a funding competition for startups produced by the Velocity startup incubator. The competition offers the opportunity for University of Waterloo student-led teams with innovative solutions and high potential business ideas to showcase their work and compete for grant funding.
This semester's competition featured an additional $5K prize for a team with a health focused idea, also won by MedAtlas. This marks the first time in the competition's history that one team was awarded a total of $10k for their idea.
Top applicants were invited to pitch to a panel of experienced entrepreneurs. The winners needed to pass through three stages of judging to the finals. See the MedAtlas team's finalist pitch.
Winners of the Concept $5K finals were announced August 3.
Simplifying health care using telemedicine
MedAtlas is a platform that aims to simplify health care in Africa using telemedicine solutions. Accessing specialist care is challenging with limited specialists and geographical distance leading to delayed care and high treatment costs. MedAtlas is developing a web and mobile app to help solve this problem by delivering informative, accessible, affordable, community-driven healthcare services.
The team consists of Waterloo Public Health and Health Systems PhD candidate Margaret Mutumba, and Bonita Nanziri, a software engineer and innovator working in Uganda. Passionate about public health and innovation, Mutumba has more than a decade of experience in maternal, sexual and reproductive health focused on accessible and affordable fertility care in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Although the $5K grants have been named, Concept is still gathering votes for the People's Champ award. Viewers are invited to review the finalist pitches on YouTube and give their favourite team a like. The team with the most video likes will receive $500. Voting is open until August 6, 2021.