The Future Internet CHallenge eHealth (FICHe) accelerator attracted European eHealth SMEs and startups: In total 308 applications were submitted in a period of 6 weeks. A total of 48 applications were submitted by Dutch SMEs and startups. Each of the applicants have the chance to receive up to € 217.000 in funding to speed up their process to go from idea to market.
The next weeks the 80 most promising applications will be handpicked and awarded access to the accelerator program. The three-phase acceleration program offers the SMEs and startups a wide range of services starting with boot-camps and continued with business coaching, training, user groups, field labs and technical support.
The three phases of the accelerator program will challenge the selected applicants to create the best business model, go-to-market strategy, proof of concept, investors pitch and tested prototype. To reach the next phase, applicants have to be among the top 50%, ending with the best 20 that will make it to the final phase.
Participation was open to all European eHealth small and mid-sized enterprises and startups eager to develop innovative applications in the eHealth domain using FIWARE technology (www.fiware.org) The open call was published on www.f6s.com/fiche and supported by partners throughout Europe.
Project coordinator Satu Väinämö from University of Oulu, Finland leads the project. Väinämö is very delighted to see that FICHe has aroused a lot of interest within eHealth companies from all across Europe. She believes that among submitted ideas there are real diamonds to be developed into successful businesses.
Initiator of the FICHe project and consortium Paul Pelsmaeker from Stichting Digitalezorg.nl, The Netherlands: “The results of the open call are very promising and we are looking forward to work with the best teams to develop their ideas into successful businesses. The challenge begins now”.
Why eHealth?
With aging populations, European countries are spending an increasing percentage of their GDP on healthcare. The healthcare sector has been more resistant to the current crisis than other industries, continuing to attract investments. Innovation is now expected to have a big impact, making health access, management and delivery more efficient by the use of Information Technology. By empowering highly-innovative start-ups and small- and mid-sized enterprises, FICHe aims to make European healthcare more competitive.
FIWARE technology
FIWARE is an innovative, open cloud-based infrastructure for cost-effective creation and delivery of Future Internet applications and services, at a scale not seen before. FIWARE API specifications are public and royalty-free, driven by the development of an open source reference implementation which accelerates the availability of commercial products and services based on FIWARE technologies. Stay tuned: http://www.fiware.org or @FIWare
Pan-European project
FICHe is co-funded under the European Union’s Programme for research, technological development and demonstration.
Project partners are University of Oulu, Business Oulu, TIC BioMed, FFIS de la region de Murcia, TNO, Amsterdam Economic Board, Stichting zorgInc., Dutch eHealth Fund Management BV and Stichting Digitalezorg.nl.
