IIT Hyderabad’s Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CfHE) calls for applications for Fellowship Program

Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CfHE) has called for applications for the Fifth Batch of its fully-paid Fellowship. The startups and Alumni of this Fellowship have developed solutions for major healthcare issues affecting India including COVID-19 pandemic besides infant mortality and other issues.

The program is open to candidates with medical, engineering and design degrees. It offers a monthly stipend of Rs. 50,000 during first year of training. The number of Fellowships to be offered this year is 25.

Housed in a 6,000 sq.ft., brand new facility, the CfHE incubator offers design and 3D fabrication facilities for prototyping of solutions and testing of medical devices and serves as a rapid acceleration platform for the fellows and startups.

Speaking about the unique aspects of the CfHE Fellowship, Prof. B.S. Murty, Director, IIT Hyderabad, said, “A need was felt to usher in Innovation and incubation culture in academic institutions. IIT Hyderabad has always been progressive to address such needs. With a strong research in Biomedical Engineering, and lot of faculty from other departments engaged in interdisciplinary research in allied areas, it was only appropriate to identify healthcare as the theme for this endeavour.”

This full-time in-residence Fellowship and training will be strongly hands-on. The Program follows a carefully structured and comprehensive package of curriculum. Further details can be obtained from CfHE Website – https://cfhe.iith.ac.in/index.html

The Fellows will undergo intense clinical immersions in private and public hospitals. They will also be taught bio-design process by IIT Hyderabad faculty and will have access to mentors, industry professionals and investors besides advisors.

Highlighting the unique aspects of this program, Prof. Renu John, Head, CfHE and Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, said, “The fellowship in healthcare Entrepreneurship at CfHE is one of its kind in the country and the diversity of domain expertise that is available with CfHE has been one of the critical strengths in driving this program successfully.”

A three-stage selection process with shortlisting at each stage shall be used:

STAGE 1: An online test that checks

A. General aptitude

B. Skills

C. Entrepreneurial orientation of the candidates,

STAGE 2: A hackathon, whose details shall be announced soon. Candidates shortlisted after these two stages would be required to appear for stage 3 at IIT Hyderabad

STAGE 3: A 3-day process where candidates get the opportunity to take part in a mock drill with a need analysis, problem statement, ideation, proof of concept and market analysis.

Further, Dr Ramkumar S., Chief Operating Officer, CfHE, said, “A healthcare hackathon would bring together the brightest engineering, clinical, product design and technology minds with a passion to innovation. We expect a lot more diversity and domain expertise in the program merging nontechnical aspects of user experience and business models in addressing critical cinilcal challenges.”

CfHE and its incubatees have contributed to the sudden need for innovative products to address the COVID-19 crisis. The products they have developed include ‘Jeevan Lite,’ a low cost Ventilator, Nemocare’s ‘Raksha Plus’ for geolocation, patient/suspect tracking and monitoring disease progression detection, ‘Cowin20,’ a wearable device for Covid detection, ‘TraQaro,’ a geofencing product and ‘Usafe,’ a low cost personal protection equipment.

CfHE, sponsored by two IIT Bombay alumni, is focused on bringing about universal healthcare. The Center’s objective is to catalyze healthcare innovation to bring about affordable solutions to address healthcare needs of India.

Entering into the fifth year of its existence, CfHE has successfully mentored 18 Fellows and is incubating seven companies, which have a combined valuation of nearly Rs. 7 million. These companies have been able attract net grants and funds worth over Rs. 10 million from prominent Venture Capitalists/Grant-awarding agencies such as Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Steven’s University (US) in addition to seed funding from CfHE to the tune of Rs. 15 million.

Two products have already entered the market with a few more to be launched soon. Currently another nine Fellows are undergoing the program.