ZS PRIZE: Healthcare innovation challenge seeks ideas for Rs 1 crore prize money

Global consulting firm ZS has announced the launch of ZS PRIZE in India to select some of the best ideas and solutions to solve complex healthcare challenges.

The theme of the ZS PRIZE is “shaping the future of health and healthcare in India by creating innovative and transformative solutions leveraging data, analytics, and technology”.

With a prize money of Rs 1 crore, ZS PRIZE is inviting participants from any stream.

The ZS PRIZE was officially launched on October 28, 2020. Indian citizens above the age of 18 can submit their ideas or solution prototypes through December 21, 2020.

The top 20 selected teams, evaluated on pre-defined criteria, will go through a six-week mentorship with ZS leaders between January and February 2021. The top 8 teams, out of the 20, will then present their solutions to the jury in March 2021.

A grand prize winner plus 7 additional teams will be selected by a panel of judges and industry experts.

The top 8 teams will share a Rs 1 crore prize purse. ZS PRIZE is open to students and professionals from the start-up, enterprise, and NGO sectors of India.

An independent jury consisting of Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairperson, Biocon; Sangita Reddy, Jt. MD, Apollo Hospitals; Sandeep Singhal, MD, Nexus Venture Partners; Ferzaan Engineer, Chairman, Cytecare Hospitals; K. Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health Foundation of India; Vijay Chandru, Chairman, Strand Life Sciences; Dipak Jain, President and Professor at China Europe International Business School; and Ravi Venkatesan, Social Entrepreneur and former Chairman of Microsoft India will evaluate and select the ideas.

Venkatesan will chair the jury.

Regional Managing Principal and Asia Head at ZS.

Sanjay Joshi, who served as the Chief Executive of Wipro Consulting before joining ZS, said this was the first ever such prize launched by the Evanston, Illinois-headquartered company that provides consulting, software, and technology to large corporations, including 49 of the 50 largest drug makers in healthcare and 17 of the 20 largest medical device makers.

ZS was founded in 1983 by Andris Zoltners and Prabhakant (Prabha) Sinha, two Ph.D. classmates turned college professors at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Joshi said ZS PRIZE isn’t the 24 hours hackathon or checkbox ticking kind of model.

“The prize money is materially significant for someone to get a start and give some fuel to their ideas, all of the people on the jury, will be passionate about the ideas in their own goodness, do their bit in making successful and ZS will mentor 20-30 people based on our knowledge of industry and data. We will polish their ideas,” Joshi said

“We want ZS PRIZE to become an institution and become a catalyst for large-scale health innovation in India,” Joshi added.

“The ZS PRIZE is to look at really out of box ideas, ideas that are novel and ideas that can address healthcare needs. It’s about equitable and accessible healthcare,” said Mazumdar Shaw, one of the jury members.

“There’s a huge new opportunity to improve healthcare with the power of digital technologies,” Mazumdar Shaw said.