NEW YORK CITY (FEBRUARY 28, 2024) — Firefly Innovations, the premier public health entrepreneurship platform of the Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy at the City University of New York, announced today that it is accepting applications for the fifth annual CUNY Public Health Innovation Accelerator.
Although the 2024 application deadline is May 1, applications will be reviewed by Firefly Innovations on a rolling basis and ventures are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.
The 2024 Accelerator, which will operate in June and July, is focused on health equity, digital health, and the social determinants of health. The Accelerator will support at least eight ventures, in any sector, solving public health challenges nationally and globally.
Photo Credit: Healthy People 2030
The Accelerator helps entrepreneurs access the tools, expertise, resources, and funding necessary to create and implement robust, scalable, and equitable public health solutions. The ventures in each cohort are immersed in a unique and global community of peers, mentors, industry experts, and investors through weekly workshops, presentations, consultations, coaching sessions, and individualized support valued at $25,000.
Ventures will also be featured in a global showcase for the Firefly Innovations network of funding partners who have the capacity to invest over $1 million.
In 2023, the Accelerator experienced record demand and interest with 116 ventures and 173 individual entrepreneurs in 24 countries competing to be among the eight ventures selected for the program.
“In the U.S., and globally, we face a ‘Cascading Crisis’ of various interconnected and compounding public health crises,” said W. Michael Short, Managing Director of Firefly Innovations and the CUNY Public Health Innovation Accelerator. “With the support of incredible partners, like KPMG, we’re accelerating and scaling innovative and sustainable ventures that are solving an array of significant public health crises.”
Originally launched in 2020 by Dr. Terry Huang and the team at Firefly Innovations, the Accelerator has provided over 3,000 hours of pro-bono professional services, coaching, and consulting support to 72 entrepreneurs from 30 ventures — 90% minority-led and 50% women-led — that are working to solve various public health crises in 17 countries.
After participating in the Accelerator, ventures have expanded, launched pilot projects, created jobs, developed new partnerships, and secured over $5.6 million in funding to accelerate and scale their public health impact in communities throughout the world.
Accelerator FAQs
We appreciate your interest and look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Click on a tab below to learn more.
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The accelerator begins on June 5th and ends on July 25th. There will be weekly scheduled workshops and mentor sessions. Each workshop will last up to 3 hours each Wednesday 10am-1pm. Mentoring sessions will last up to 1 hour with a team of mentors and will take place each Thursday at either 10am or 11am.
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All applicants are reviewed by the organizers of this accelerator, which include internal and external partners. Applicants will be graded on a rubric that includes, but is not limited to, the following considerations: feasibility of the operational or technical solution, understanding of the problem and market, business model development, and expertise alignment of the team.
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All participating ventures will virtually present their public health solutions on July 25th, 2024 to a public audience of entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, among others, in a 5-minute pitch with a 7-minute Q&A. Ventures will be pitching our global network of funding partners with over $1 million available.
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Public health covers a broad range of subject areas, from healthcare to food access, environment to education, or sanitation to water, because all of these issues ultimately impact public health. Even if you are not directly involved in the field of public health, you can generate a public health impact. Whether you are a scientist, a lawyer, or an artist, you can be a change agent. To learn more about public health goals, visit Healthy People 2030 to understand the vision of the public health field.
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With a focus on health equity, digital health, and the social determinants of health, the annual accelerator supports eight ventures from any sector working to solve public health crises both nationally and globally. Here are some examples of categories of companies that have applied to past accelerators: Data Capture, Sharing & Analytics, Telemedicine, Streamlined Virtual Care, Medical Transportation, Chronic Disease Management & Monitoring, Care Coordination & Collaboration, Decision Assist, Population Health Management, Digital Marketplace Enablement, and Health e-Learning / Education, and much more.
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Participating ventures come from any sector and produce public health impact. Venture teams can be a nonprofit, for-profit or social ventures. Teams are made up of all backgrounds and disciplines. Ventures do not have to be in the health sector or be made up of health professionals to qualify. Whether participants are scientists, lawyers, marketers, engineers, artists, students or teachers, they all become public health entrepreneurs through this accelerator.
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Even though the Accelerator will focus on specific global health challenges and solutions, we encourage people of all backgrounds and occupations to apply. We strive to have a diverse collection of participants from various sectors working together. This Accelerator isn’t exclusive to public health professionals and practitioners.
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No, the Accelerator does not have an equity requirement.
2023 Participant Testimonials:
Oatmeal Health is an AI-enabled Cancer Screening as a Service for under-represented patients of FQHCs and Health Plans.
"The accelerator was a great experience and is very different from many of the other programs that I have been a part of in the past. The goal of Firefly Innovations and CUNY SPH is not just education, but providing true connections to corporate partners, philanthropist groups, health plans, healthcare providers, and traditional venture capital all with one common goal to help support and accelerate public health initiatives like the tech-enabled cancer screenings that we provide to underserved patient populations.”
Tiny Docs supports healthcare partners to educate scares kids, improve kids’ health outcomes, and save providers time with educational and entertaining animated content.
"The accelerator provided the mentorship, education, and fellowship we needed to take our business to the next level. Beyond that, it helped me to become a better entrepreneur and leader. I am excited about continuing the partnership with Firefly Innovations and the great things that we will accomplish together to advance public health in the future."
Sanitas Health is a psychology-based language analysis platform for understanding human emotions, personalities, motivations, and psychology from everyday language.
“The CUNY accelerator was tremendously helpful. The mentors and the focus on Public Health and policies around health equity completely aligned with the mission of Sanitas. Sanitas is a social enterprise with a vision of Health Equity for All. The Firefly/CUNY accelerator was more than the typical 8-12 weeks of programming culminating with a demo day. The Firefly/CUNY programming was unique and led by healthcare professionals with a shared moral imagination. There was a demo day at the conclusion and Sanitas was one of the three winners of the demo day competition. We've been riding high ever since we started the program. While in the program we closed several large customers and started one new paid pilot. We can't say enough about how much we gained from Firefly/CUNY.”
Sanarai is an online platform that connects the Latinx community to mental health professionals in Latin America to provide culturally sensitive, Spanish-language emotional support at accessible prices.
“During the accelerator, we've benefited from its healthcare-specific focus, receiving tailored support and industry-specific expertise to effectively address our challenges. The program's strong connections in the NYC ecosystem have also provided valuable opportunities for potential collaborations and partnerships within the local healthcare community, enhancing our visibility and access to key stakeholders in the region.”
RE-Assist is a digital platform that empowers more efficient transfer of care admission.
“Through the CUNY accelerator we have been able to analyze healthcare and the future thereof from a public health standpoint. We have taken a closer look at our approach and how we can make care coordination easily and less burdensome on patients and hospitals. RE-Assist is excited to work with CUNY Public Health Accelerator and Firefly on a long-term basis to help improve the transfer of care in healthcare. This partnership will help give us the tools and resources necessary to create a process that will be scalable across the continuum of care. Since graduating from the accelerator, we have partnered with Harvard blackbox Lab to support the development and validation of the RE-Assist platform through research. We are looking for innovative hospitals who would like to pilot with us to simplify their transfer of care model and comply with rules from CMS. During the pilot of the RE-Assist digital platform, the blackbox Lab will study the features of the SaaS tool to understand its effectiveness and impact on equity in transfer of care from hospital to post-acute care. We believe with the help and support from CUNY and Harvard we can make a major impact on the referral management marketplace.”
Medsembly is an employee engagement, learning, and wellness tool helping healthcare companies stay connected to their team, improve company culture, and work performance, while offering career support and guidance to current and future healthcare workers.
“The Firefly/CUNY SPH Accelerator was one of the most rewarding experiences in my startup journey. I enjoyed the interactive expert-led discussions that helped us learn key aspects of building a public-health mission driven company. One of my favorite parts about the accelerator was the mentor groups. We were paired with a group of mentors and met with them weekly. I appreciate the constructive feedback, insights, and most of all, the endless motivation my mentors provided. Firefly/CUNY SPH is dedicated to nurturing the growth of early-stage companies and I look forward to continuing our work together and having the support of such tremendous organizations.”
Human Edge is an enterprise tech company focusing on optimizing the health and wellbeing of the global workforce to help them achieve peak performance.
“We were delighted to participate in the CUNY SPH Accelerator, operated by Firefly Innovations. The exposure to the US public health environment, and opportunity to start building a network within this stakeholder community, will be of tremendous value in the years to come.”
Speetar Health is a telehealth platform that provides accessible, affordable quality healthcare in adverse conditions and creates centralized health data to protect increasingly mobile populations.
“I had the good fortune of meeting the accelerator’s managing director W. Michael Short at a summit hosted by MIT and he encouraged us to apply. It was clear right from the start that we made the right decision. It was a rewarding experience and we look forward to building on our collaboration with Firefly Innovations in the years to come.”
