Digital Square launches a global call for applications to identify and promote digital health technologies, generating impact at scale
Digital Square at PATH is committed to advancing global goods crucial for saving lives and improving health around the world. At Digital Square, global goods are digital health tools that are free, open source, impactful, scalable, and adaptable to different countries and contexts. These global goods are essential to cut down on fragmentation and duplication of tools to accelerate and scale health impact.
In addition, they actively focus on data sharing to ease interoperability and deployability and better serve low- and middle-income countries. Since its inception, Digital Square has funded 58 projects that invest in a pool of 35 global goods, covering the three main types of global goods (i.e., software, services, and content). These 35 global goods are currently employed in more than 130 countries worldwide. This funding has led to increased maturity for 16 software global goods.
Digital Square also engages an inclusive and active global goods community and connects them to countries’ digital health needs and work. This global goods community enables partners to share and learn from one another’s best practices through platforms such as the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) webinar series, thereby improving the quality, features, and interoperability of their software.
Given the shifts in the ecosystem over the past several years and in response to community feedback, Digital Square recently launched a special call for applications, Notice G, which is dedicated to funding digital health technologies worldwide that qualify as global goods. Existing global goods are invited to participate in this call. The initiative aims to expand its outreach efforts to African and Asian markets and build a new generation of global goods while fostering increasingly stronger collaboration and networks with local and regional partners.
"Notice G is not a usual funding opportunity but rather an opportunity to pull together the community of digital health innovators for health," said Carl Fourie, Digital Square's Deputy Director of Global Goods. "Together, we will increase the availability, adaptability, and maturity of high-quality digital health tools to address country-driven health needs."
What is different about Notice G?
This call for application is different from all our previous ones. All global goods currently approved by Digital Square are encouraged to apply to ensure that the tools are re-evaluated. They will be required to submit documentation to demonstrate how they meet the revised evaluation criteria for measuring the maturity and scale of their tools. Through this launch, Digital Square is also focusing on identifying new global goods and encouraging new teams and tools to submit applications to be approved as global goods. This call seeks to identify solutions that have the potential to be scaled and have a significant impact through grant support, technical assistance, and connection with Digital Square’s global goods community network.
What digital health solutions are we looking for?
One call, three rounds of opportunity
The initiative will be divided into three rounds to actively seek out prospective applicants, particularly those who submit applications for software, service and content types of global goods. The extended time frame will also ensure sufficient time for the Peer Review Committee and Investment Review Committee to screen applications and ensure the next generation of the global goods portfolio is both well balanced and diversified.
Round 1 (Notice G0): Funding opportunity for digital health tools as software applications that are free and open source and are used to manage, analyze, or transmit health-related data, with proven utility in several settings.
Launch date: August 29, 2022
Open Application Portal (OAP) link: Notice G0
Register for the information session: August 31, 2022, at 3 p.m. (CEST)/9 a.m. (ET)
Application deadline: October 14, 2022
Round 2 (Notice G1): Funding opportunity for digital health content as a knowledge resource, toolkit, or data standard available under an open license that is used to improve or analyze health data management and exchange processes.
Launch date: November 2022
Round 3 (Notice G2): Funding opportunity for digital health software that facilitates the delivery of health care services and is used to manage, transmit, or analyze health-related data that can be freely accessed as a software service and that adheres to open data principles.
Launch date: December 2022
Benefits of applying
Recognition as an approved global good
Primarily, successful applications will be recognized as an approved global good and gain an approved status which they can use to garner donor support. They will also form part of the broader Digital Square global goods community, a platform that facilitates technical guidance, knowledge sharing, and ample opportunities for collaboration. Additionally, they will have access to Digital Square's basket of services, plus further benefits associated with being an approved global good.
Inclusion in the Global Goods Guidebook
Digital Square will feature approved global goods in its next version of the Global Goods Guidebook, an expanded resource for countries to learn how global goods can augment and accelerate their health strategies. This key reference catalog forms part of the recommended guidance in selecting digital health solutions for country adoption by donors. It is endorsed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL), Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
A chance to attend the 2023 Global Good Innovators Meeting
In addition, select successful applicants will unlock the opportunity to attend the 2023 Global Good Innovators Meeting (link to 2022 meeting). This will be an action-packed multi-day summit in Africa that convenes the broader digital health community to facilitate learning and connection. At the event, attendees will have a chance to unpack their strategies in meetings with the participating funders and partners. Participants will also have an opportunity to engage with various ministries of health on digital health innovations as well as collaborate with like-minded technical groups addressing similar and synergistic topics. A limited number of travel funds will be allocated to support select successful applicants.
One year supply of cloud hosting credits
In support of their technical advancement, all approved awardees from Notice G will be eligible for one year of cloud hosting credits from Amazon Web Services (AWS) as part of the AWS Health Equity Initiative. Digital Square and AWS entered into a collaboration earlier this year to advance global goods and kicked off by supporting Notice F awardees in need of cloud computing credits.
Opportunities for technical assistance
Finally, select successful applicants will receive a fixed award of up to $25,000 and technical assistance from Digital Square to support the publication of data on the impact and/or scale of their global good. Digital Square will disseminate these materials through their broader network and global communications channels as they continue to advocate for the use of global goods.
How to apply
Digital Square continues to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion in its grant-making processes. For Notice G, Digital Square has adopted a new, innovative, easy-to-use submission platform that provides standard applications that are easily accessible to diverse applicants.
The application form includes sections on product information and documentation, global utility, community, and sustainability. All interested parties are invited to submit qualifying applications no later than September 30, 2022. All applications must be submitted in English.
For more information on Notice G, register for our information session here.
For more information about Digital Square's portfolio of global goods, please be in touch with Digital Square's Deputy Director of Global Goods, Carl Fourie: cfourie@path.org.