More than 400 public health innovators submitted entries for the first World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Innovation Challenge: Innovation for the Future of Public Health. The Innovation Challenge aimed to identify solutions to better the health and well-being of people in the Region which includes 37 countries and areas across Asia and the Pacific.

Judges comprising WHO staff and industry experts selected 29 organizations as the inaugural Innovation Challenge winners for their proposed solutions to health challenges. Winning solutions include water pumps that do not need electricity, an app to screen for stroke and a COVID-19 emergency chatbot.

The winning organizations will showcase their solutions at the 2022 Western Pacific Innovation Forum: Scaling for Impact on 28–29 April.

“I am pleased to congratulate the first WHO Western Pacific Region Innovation Challenge winners and recognize them for their visions, passion, knowledge and experience in understanding the tackling the health challenges in our Region,” said Dr Takeshi Kasai, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific  

The EMU/Monash University team received the award for the effort in development and deployment of the COVID-19 collaborative modelling for policy response. We are very proud to a country member of the team consisted of three countries in the Western Pacific.

The modelling code could be found at https://github.com/monash-emu/AuTuMN

Link to news at WHO website https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/item/25-04-2022-who-announces-winners-of-inaugural-western-pacific-innovation-challenge