With a legacy of over 35 years and presence in 14 countries, US headquartered ZS, a global professional services firm with three offices in Gurugram, Pune and New Delhi, has announced ZS PRIZE to help innovators solve for India’s healthcare challenges of availability, accessibility and affordability.

A grand prize winner plus seven additional teams will be selected by a panel of judges and industry experts. The top eight teams will share Rs 1 crore prize purse. ZS PRIZE is open to students (graduates and postgraduates from any discipline) and professionals from the start-up, enterprise and NGO sectors of India.

ZS PRIZE will accept registrations which can either be ideas or solution prototypes, through December 21, 2020. The top 20 selected teams, evaluated on pre-defined criteria, will go through a six-week mentorship with ZS leaders between January and February 2021. The top eight teams out of the 20, will then present their solutions to the jury in March 2021.

With the theme of ‘shaping the future of health and healthcare in India by creating innovative and transformative solutions leveraging data, analytics and technology’, ZS PRIZE will invite participants from any stream to solve for their fellow citizens’ challenges for easily available and inexpensive healthcare solutions. A programme like ZS PRIZE can also help further the mission of Ayushman Bharat, which too aims at making healthcare accessible to Indians at large.

Sanjay Joshi, Regional Managing Principal, Asia Head, ZS offers that, “ZS PRIZE is in essence a ‘Solve for India.’ It is a call for action to all the sharp minds across India to come forward and showcase their brilliant ideas to solve the availability, accessibility and affordability issues in the Indian healthcare ecosystem.”

The independent jury members boast some of the most accomplished visionaries in healthcare, venture capital, academic and business sectors. This includes:  

• Ravi Venkatesan(Business Leader, Author, and Social Entrepreneur Founder of GAME and Former Chairman of Microsoft India, ZS PRIZE Jury Chairman)
• Dr. Dipak Jain(President & Professor at China Europe International Business School, Former Dean of Kellogg School of Management)
• Kiran Mazumdar Shaw(Executive Chairperson of Biocon)
• SangitaReddy (Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals)
• Sandeep Singhal(Co-Founder and Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners)
• Dr. Ferzaan Engineer(Ex-Quintiles India Co-founder; CEO, CyteCare Hospitals; Member of the Board of Directors of Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company and Cytespace Research)
• Dr. Vijay Chandru(Co-Founder & Chairman, Strand Life Sciences)
• Prof. K. SrinathReddy (President, Public Health Foundation of India)