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Call to Action – NIH Technology Accelerator Challenge for Maternal Health – up to $1 Million in Cash Prizes!

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) is proud to announce the launch of the NIH Technology Accelerator Challenge for Maternal Health (NTAC: Maternal Health) in conjunction with the White House Maternal Health Day of Action. 

NTAC: Maternal Health is offering up to $1,000,000 in cash prizes to reward the development of low-cost, point-of-care molecular, cellular, and/or metabolic sensing and diagnostic technologies to guide rapid clinical decision-making, improve patient outcomes, and ultimately prevent maternal morbidity and mortality. More broadly, the NTAC series of prize competition’s goals are to stimulate the design of new diagnostic technologies to transform public and global health and accelerate the full development of those products urgently needed for use in low-resource settings. Device prototypes submitted to NTAC: Maternal Health should be capable of full integration with digital health platforms and be able to diagnose at least two pregnancy-associated conditions, including infections, hypertensive disease, hemorrhage, or placental issues. Complete challenge details can be found at https://www.nibib.nih.gov/research-program/NIH-Technology-Accelerator-Challenge-Maternal-Health-Announcement .

Participants in NTAC: Maternal Health will compete for the first-place prize of up to $500,000, a second-place prize of up to $300,000, and a third-place prize of up to $150,000, with the potential for additional awards of $50,000 for semi-finalists as well as honorable mention recognitions. Additionally, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is collaborating with NIH and will separately review winners and honorable mentions to consider them for follow-on support that may include grant funding and/or in-kind support in the form of consultations and partnerships for clinical data collection, software development, scale-up, and manufacturing. This Challenge is also co-sponsored by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health.

The Challenge sponsors will host an Informational Webinar for any interested participants on January 13, 2022, from 12:00 pm-1:00 pm ET. Participants wishing to compete in NTAC: Maternal Health must register for the Challenge by April 1, 2022, at https://venturewell.org/ntac/. Submissions will begin to be accepted on January 5, 2022, and must be submitted by April 22, 2022. In case of any questions, send an email to NIBIBChallenge@mail.nih.gov .

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