Open Call for Youth Voices on Health Innovation.

The Youth Cafe is thrilled to partner with the Go Youth and supports disseminating the Go Youth! Open Call to its networks, given its work in youth innovation. The Go Youth! Global Open Call 2022 is a crowdsourcing open call for Youth Voices on Health Innovation. This open call strongly focuses on supporting social innovation in health research; therefore, ideas with evidence on pilot or early-stage implementation are preferred. Are you a youth (18 to 35) interested in youth-led social innovation in health initiatives worldwide? We search for youth-led health innovations to receive seed research funding, mentorship and support, networking opportunities, and international recognition.  Learn more about the call and apply!

The purpose of this open call is to engage youth around the world to celebrate their social innovations in health and support them in measuring success. Social innovations in health are defined as inclusive and innovative solutions to address the health care delivery gap that meets the needs of end-users through a multi-stakeholder, community dynamic process.

The Social Entrepreneurship to Spur Health (SESH) team, as part of the Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI), is interested in novel ideas by youth innovators worldwide to address health issues. These include youth-led social innovations in health that target youth or the broader communities in which youth are embedded. Exceptional ideas will be recognized by the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special

Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) will receive seed funding for pilot implementation at selected sites. In addition, selected finalists will receive mentorship and training from experts to enhance research strategies that will support the development of their innovations. This will include help with monitoring and evaluation, financing, and communications. Finalists will be expected to work with SESH and the SIHI network, in collaboration with TDR, to further develop, pilot, and evaluate their innovations following the results of the open call.

This initiative builds on the success of national-level youth social innovation crowdsourcing calls in Malaysia and the Philippines organized in 2021; we are delighted to announce this new open call with a global focus. Evidence from crowdsourcing open calls suggests that youth are capable of developing high-quality creative health solutions in diverse settings.

This open call will identify youth-led social innovation in health initiatives worldwide. This open call focuses on building research capacity among selected finalists and winners. Therefore, submission themes or focuses may include but are not limited to innovations focused on addressing specific health topics; addressing the increasing incidence or spread of infectious diseases; management of non-communicable diseases and chronic conditions (for example, obesity, mental health conditions) through patient/people-centered approaches; addressing the impact of epidemics/pandemics on community and population health Innovations in changing processes, systems, and developing people-centered strategies to health; engaging and empowering community members (especially youth) to participate in health-enhancing activities;  developing innovations to target structures (e.g., healthcare institutions, policies, health systems, organizational practices) to improve patient and community health innovations in campaigning or messaging for health; Innovative campaigns or messaging (e.g., health campaigns, songs, edutainment) to enhance health-related behaviors or perceptions; and develop platforms for sharing of health knowledge and other health promotion efforts to improve health.

The final deadline for contributions is June 30, 2022. SESH (Social Entrepreneurship to Spur Health) Global and SIHI, with support from TDR, are the main organizers of the open call. All youth 18 to 35 years old are eligible to submit to this open call. Group submissions are also allowed for groups of up to 4 people. Requests in all six languages of the WHO will be accepted (Spanish, French, Arabic, Chinese, English, Russian).

You may submit your idea online through this link. Submission of one A4 page (prefer Times New Roman 12, single-spaced, no more than 50MB) that describes your innovation or idea. Ideas can also be submitted as a single Word or text processing file via our online submission form as an attachment.  Links to images, audio files, and video files can be embedded as hyperlinks in the text. Alternatively, submissions may be made through Chat-based (WhatsApp or WeChat) submissions; you may download your offline submission form. Please send your filled submission form directly via WhatsApp to +6591878576 or WeChat to WeChat ID: sesh Llc.  Images, audio files, or video clips accompanying your text submissions can also be forwarded.

For enhanced accessibility to participate in this open call, we also accept audio-only or video-only submissions no longer than 3 minutes in length. You would be expected to describe your innovation or solution within this 3-minute timeframe. You may submit this via the online submission form or forward this through a chat-based submission platform. 

There is no required structure for your request, regardless of whether you choose a 500-word submission or a video/audio description. However, some of the questions that your proposal could address include: How would you describe your innovation in one or two sentences? What problem is this innovation addressing? Has anyone else tried to address this problem? Is there any evidence of the impact of this innovation so far? Has this innovation been implemented before? What are some outcomes that you hope to achieve with your creation?

Submissions will be considered on a 1-10 scale according to five criteria: 

Clear and concise description: This refers to how clearly your innovation or solution has been described. An apparent innovation or solution would include a transparent background or rationale, brief details of your creation or idea, and how this will impact or improve health.

Relevance: This refers to whether your innovation or solution tackles or addresses important health issues or relevance to a given community. This is usually evidenced through preliminary evidence or background on your target population and how your proposed innovation or solution would be relevant.

Novelty: This refers to how novel or innovative your solution is. The solution should be novel to the context in which it is implemented or aims to innovate within existing systems.

Feasibility, Scalability/Replicability, and Sustainability: Your innovation's practical or pragmatic aspect. Feasibility refers to how easily and practically implementable your innovation would be; Scalability refers to how easily your invention can be generalized to a larger population, whereas replicability refers to the ability to replicate your project in other settings; Sustainability refers to how your innovation can be sustained beyond piloting or initial phases and is usually evidenced by how it can be self-sustained financially or further taken up by other stakeholders. Is the innovation or solution easily directed? Are there means to assess the effectiveness of this solution? Are there preliminary data or prototypes available?

Promotion of Equity and Fairness: This refers to how the proposed innovation addresses issues of equity and fairness (in health outcomes, in representation) and the participating team’s methods of developing their ideas. For example, do solutions empower youth and community members through co-creation or participatory processes? Are gender and other intersection inequalities acknowledged or addressed in the approach to innovation or as an outcome of the invention itself?

After screening for eligibility, all the eligible entries will be assessed by independent judges. At least three independent individuals will review each submission, and the steering committee will make final decisions.

The deadline for submission is June 30, 2022, at noon GVA followed by judging, which runs from July-August 2022, and finalist notifications in August 2022. After that, we will Pilote Finalists’ Projects and Research from September 2022 onwards The open call has global prizes. Selected finalists will receive seed funding, research mentorship, and dissemination of their findings to a broader audience. International conferences and ceremonies will also mentor finalists. Selected finalists may also be given opportunities for mentorship around innovative financing models or crowdfunding.

The Global Steering Committee for the project includes:  Ms. Louise AGERSNAP (Switzerland), Dr. Darlan ALVARADO (Honduras), Dr. Uche Veronica AMAZIGO (Nigeria), Dr. Phyllis Awor (Uganda), Mx Kalisito BIAUKULA (Fiji), Mx Katusha DE VILLIERS (South Africa), Dr. Beatrice HALPAAP (Switzerland), Dr. Meredith LABARDA (Philippines), Mr. Senthilkumar MURUGESAN (India), Mr. Thu Kyaw MYAT (Singapore), Mr. Siddharth NAIR (India), Ms. Noluyolo NGOMANI (South Africa), Mr. Willice ONYANGO (Kenya), Dr. Robert SCHERPBIER (Switzerland), Ms. Yusha TAO (China), Dr. Rayner TAN (China), Dr. Joseph D Tucker (The United Kingdom/United States)

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an open call? Open calls provide a structured mechanism to solicit feedback over a while. Governments, private foundations, and others have used Open calls to spur innovation. More details about open contests for health are available here.

Can I apply as an individual or a group? You can submit an idea as an individual or on behalf of a group of up to a maximum of four individuals.

Is there a limit to the number of contributions? No, there is no limit. However, in fairness to all other participants, only 1 of your ideas may be selected to qualify as a finalist.

Since the open call is for early-stage ideas, concepts, and proposals, participants do not need to have an incorporated business or be part of an organization to enter the open call.

However, we will welcome submissions on behalf of organizations or businesses that are youth-led. Registration for and participation in the Challenge is free, with no purchase or payment obligation.

The open call has global prizes. Selected finalists will receive seed funding (quantum subject to the needs of each project) to pilot their innovations in their communities, as well as research mentorship to help monitor and evaluate their projects, write research manuscripts, and disseminate their findings to a broader audience. Finalists will also be given the opportunity to have their projects recognized at international conferences and ceremonies.

Submission must be the original work of the Participant. The Participant must not knowingly infringe, misappropriate, or otherwise violate any intellectual property rights, privacy rights, or other rights of any person or entity in work performance.

The SESH (Social Entrepreneurship to Spur Health) initiative is a partnership joining individuals from the Southern Medical University Dermatology Hospital, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the University of North Carolina-Project China. The main goal of this project is to create more creative, equitable, and effective health services using crowdsourcing open calls and other social entrepreneurship tools. Crowdsourcing is having a group solve a problem and then share that solution widely with the public. SESH is the Social Innovation in Health Initiative Hub for China.

The Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI) is an informal network of individuals and institutions sharing a common goal to advance social innovation in health through research, capacity building, and advocacy to accelerate progress toward universal health coverage and meet the Sustainable Development Goals. Since 2014, SIHI has identified and studied more than 40 community-based social innovations across 17 countries, transforming health care delivery to improve access, so no one is left behind.

The network is supported by TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Disease, co-sponsored by UNDP, UNICEF, the World Bank, and WHO. TDR is a global program of scientific collaboration that helps facilitate, support, and influence efforts to combat diseases of poverty. TDR can conduct its work thanks to the commitment and support from various funders. TDR works with multiple donors and receives additional funding from SIDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, to support SIHI.

For Inquiries, kindly contact contest coordinator Rayner Tan at Rayner.tan@seshglobal.org.

The Youth Café is a multi-award-winning, pan-African, youth organization that strives to enrich the lives of young people by modeling and advancing youth-led. Rights-based approaches to foster young people’s civic efficacy, community resilience, sustainable development, and equitable society, proposing innovative solutions, driving social progress, and inspiring transformative change by utilizing innovative research, policy, and advocacy actions.