October 4, 2023

Summer 2023 Social Entrepreneurship Fellows complete projects, share findings

The Population Health Initiative’s summer 2023 Social Entrepreneurship Fellows Program concluded in August with the fellows presenting their findings to students, faculty and staff from schools and colleges across campus. The fellows spent 10 weeks working on population health innovations developed by University of Washington researchers to determine how these innovations could be financially sustainable while also having a substantial societal impact.

The Social Entrepreneurship Fellows Program was developed by the Population Health Initiative – in partnership with the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship, the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, School of Public Health, and CoMotion – to expand opportunities for students from all disciplines to gain real-world experience in social entrepreneurship while providing UW investigators with a roadmap to sustainability for their population health-related innovations.

The students selected for this summer’s program were:

Name	School	Program
Ravali Kothuri	Foster School of Business	Master of Business Administration
Kunal Patel	School of Public Health	Master of Public Health
Shaan Chopra	College of Engineering	PhD of Computer Science & Engineering
Luyanda Ngongoma	School of Public Health	Master of Public Health
Caroline Kasman	School of Medicine	Master of Health Metrics Sciences

The Social Entrepreneurship fellows, along with the Buerk Center’s ITHS & WRF Summer Commercialization fellows, worked as a cohort, discussing each other’s projects and presenting their processes and findings throughout the program. The fellow’s final presentations and reports offered the UW investigators a detailed analysis in customer discovery, markets, competitive landscapes and a final recommendation for a business model to move their projects forward.

Kothuri worked with the Scaling Emerging Solar Technologies to Pressing Climate Change Clean Energy Goals team, whose goal is to explore a sustainable, economical and distributed manufacturing pathway where U.S. environmental regulations are integrated and transparent in the manufacturing process. Over the course of the summer, Kothuri conducted research to explore the complete life cycle impact of these emerging solar cell technologies that have the potential to provide a lower carbon footprint alternative to any current solar panel technology, conducted customer interviews with key stakeholders across a variety of sectors, conducted a market analysis and explored sustainable pathways forward.

Patel’s project, ExerciseRX, is a software platform that focuses on the global crisis of physical inactivity through the evaluation of patients’ activity levels, identifying barriers, developing customized exercise regimens and tracking activity. Over the 10-week fellowship period, Patel examined ExerciseRX’s current challenges and areas for growth by engaging with various stakeholders — from providers, patients to potential funders. Patel offered specific recommendations to enhance the utility and reach of ExerciseRX, namely, aligning with potential partners, integrating with EHR, collaborating with providers and showcasing the research-based benefits of the software. Patel’s roadmap for success showcased a feasible and hopeful future for a much-needed program.

Chopra spent the 10-week fellowship program investigating the Culturally-Responsive Developmental Screening Tool, a clinical intervention for developmental assessment in primary care settings and a technology tool with an approach called “No Wrong Door.” This approach involves families receiving services from a network of locations across several access points. Chopra conducted 14 stakeholder interviews across primary care providers, various care specialists, technology design researchers, developmental navigators and more to better understand market feasibility and how this tool could be most effective. Along with customer discovery, Chopra offered three main objectives to best measure impact, showcased potential high-impact investors, examined operation costs and looked at scaling and other possible funding pathways. Her recommendations included the necessity of an interdisciplinary team, continued need for grant funding until a for profit or hybrid model is feasible, and to focus on branding the tool as a lifestyle business as a way to bring access and equity to the forefront.

“I really appreciated the perspective this fellowship gave me. … I came in with a very rigid perspective of ‘all things finance, business are evil’ and was ready to have to fight for what I felt would be right for my project. But the fellowship was far from that and everyone was so supportive in helping me reach my goals and learn a new perspective! The fellowship really pushed me to work on expanding my thought process and perspective beyond academic research – an experience I have not gotten before.” – Shaan Chopra

SkinVax is a promising next generation malaria vaccine. Their goal is to develop a technology that would not only obviate the need for IV delivery in malaria vaccines, but also improve the feasibility and translation of skin vaccination through a microneedle delivery system. SkinVax uses this microneedle delivery system to allow for an ultra-low volume dose delivery, resulting in an easy to use, cost-saving, and time-saving vaccine. Ngongoma’s competitive analysis of SkinVax looked at the ecosystem of the vaccine development pathway, examined regulatory hurdles, evaluated supportive and opposing stakeholder opinions and investigated other vaccines as competition in the funding sphere. Her ultimate recommendations to achieve sustainability moving forward were to reconsider the entry target market, consider a change of partnering team and to consider remaining a non-profit. Ngongoma’s analysis highlighted the need for this revolutionary vaccination delivery system as a way to reduce the global malaria burden.

The goal of Equinox, Kasman’s project, is to develop a way to reduce the effects of skin tone on the accuracy of pulse oximetry, resulting in equitable, reliable, and efficient care across patients. Over the course of the fellowship, Kasman conducted 15 stakeholder interviews with nurses, anesthesiologists, hospital executives, innovation leads and managers to inform her areas of interest and pain points. Along with these stakeholder interviews, Kasman’s market analysis considered the global ecosystem of the project, the competitive landscape locally and within the greater US, market drivers and current regulations. Her roadmap for the future included recommendations such as collaborating with activists and DEI committees, pursuing contract carve-outs, considering pediatrics as a profitable market and demonstrating quantifiable impact.

While the fellows all had primary responsibility for one project, the cohort structure enabled the students to work with each other and contribute their disciplinary expertise to all the other projects.

Learn more about this fellowship program by visiting its web page.