Billionaire Gates puts €29m into Concern aid project
BILLIONAIRE Bill Gates's €29m grant to an Irish overseas aid agency will fund a 'Dragon's Den' style approach to find solutions to healthcare issues in Africa and Asia.
The generous $41m grant to Concern Worldwide from the Microsoft founder's US charity, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will fund a five-year scheme aimed at coming up with innovative solutions to deal with the lack of basic healthcare for mothers, infants and children in India, Malawi and Sierre Leone, said Concern CEO Tom Arnold .
The unique programme will use a 'Dragon's Den' approach to brainstorming with overseas aid agencies, NGOs, local healthcare providers and community members, businesses, and universities to come up with new ways to deal with the massive healthcare challenges facing these countries, Mr Arnold told the Irish Independent last night.
Breakthrough
Like the reality TV show, which pitted veteran businessmen with novice entrepreneurs to come up with innovative ideas, the initiative will run a competition to find, test and evaluate some 30 "breakthrough" ideas to cope with the terrible conditions that have led to the death of a quarter of all children in Sierra Leone before their fifth birthday and the high numbers of deaths of mothers during pregnancy and childbirth in Malawi.
The initiative is also looking for new ideas to help reverse the lack of vaccinations, nutritional supplements and other basics in both Malawi and India.
"We expect some more experimental stuff to come up. There will be a degree of prudent risk-taking but we believe there are projects that need to be tried out," Mr Arnold added.
Foundation spokesman Jaime Sepulveda said Concern Worldwide was chosen for the grant due to its "commitment to seeking innovation from diverse, non-traditional sources," which he said would be "a key ingredient in the success of this programme."
- Allison Bray
