'Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development' Names 53 Finalists for Innovative Solutions to Infant/Maternal Mortality

For Immediate Release

Thursday, July 18, 2013
USAID Press Office
202-712-4320

Voting Opens for Saving Lives at Birth People’s Choice Award at
http://www.savinglivesatbirth.net/innovatorshome

Washington, D.C. – The Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development partners announced today the 53 finalists in its third global call for innovative ideas to save the lives of mothers and newborns in developing countries.  

The Saving Lives at Birth partnership, launched in 2011, is a global call for groundbreaking, scalable solutions to infant and maternal mortality around the time of birth. Saving Lives at Birth is currently in its third award round and has funded 39 innovations to date, helping to address the 150,000 maternal deaths, 1.6 million neo-natal deaths, and 1.2 million stillbirths that occur each year.

From July 29- July 31, the finalists will compete in the final stage of the competition, where innovators will display their ideas in an open, dynamic marketplace, and development experts, fellow innovators and potential funders will meet and exchange ideas.  Along with grantees from rounds one and two, finalists will participate in discussions focused on meeting the needs of women and children in low-resource settings. They will also attend workshops on business planning, market research, measurement, and monitoring and evaluation. The award nominees with the most promising innovations will be announced at a high-level forum on the last day of the DevelopmentXChange July 31.

Profiles of the finalists’ ideas will be posted on http://www.savinglivesatbirth.net/innovatorshome, where members of the public can vote for their favorite innovation. The finalist with the most votes will receive the honorary “People’s Choice Award.” Voting opens today and will close July 31 at 11:00 a.m.

The partnership includes the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada (funded by the Government of Canada), and the U.K’s Department for International Development (DFID).

Saving Lives at Birth round three finalists were selected from more than 400 submissions. More than one third of applications came from outside the US, and one quarter of applications came from low- and middle-income countries.