The IDB Lab is working on some fronts to mitigate the effects caused by COVID-19 on the population of Latin America and the Caribbean. The innovation agency of the Inter-American Development Bank launched a quick call for partners, entrepreneurs and innovators to identify and support innovative solutions to combat the pandemic.
Companies and agencies that already carry out projects with the IDB Lab, and especially those that work within health and food emergency sectors and technologies, can send ideas and proposals on how to redirect remaining resources of projects to activities that address the pandemic, or if necessary, additional resource needs for that purpose.
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Entities that have been clients or past executive agencies of the IDB Lab, as well as entrepreneurs and other entities with relevant health and technology experience, can also submit ideas and proposals for innovations to fight the coronavirus.
Rodrigo Baer, a partner in Redpoint eventures, posted the IDB call on his LinkedIn page:
Proposals must be filled out in this form (in Portuguese):
The form must be sent by the end of the business hours on Monday (23) and the results should be known on March 30. Due to the deadline, it will not be possible to give feedback for unapproved proposals. Approved proposals will have a maximum support of $150,000.
The IDB Lab will give priority to proposals that include these elements:
- Focus on improving the response of one or more countries in the region to reduce infections, improve diagnostic / testing tools and manage the health of infected people, preferably through innovative HealthTech and Telemedicine tools.
- Alignment with the health authorities’ plans for Covid-19 in the country of implementation.
- Implementable, replicable or scalable with the participation of the private sector.
- Compliance with the requirements of the “Technical Cooperation Prototype”, the BID Lab instrument on which this call will focus. *SEE EXPLANATORY DOCUMENT BELOW*. The main features are:
- Maximum amount of $ 150,000, with a minimum consideration of 20% that can be in cash.
- Innovative technologies and solutions that can be implemented, evaluated and disseminated within a maximum period of 18 months.
- Ones that already identified the company or solution provider or has a defined and agile mechanism for this.
- Rapidly implementable and with an impact on the indicators to combat Covid-19, such as the number of tests applied, management of test information, preventive actions such as reducing the number of infections, increasing the health management capacity of public and private actors, rate of recovery of people undergoing treatment, improvement of medical material supply chains, services for isolated people, distribution of food and basic needs, etc.
