The University of Louisville and partners will fund 15 solutions to improve health equity as part of a $1.5 million innovation challenge.
The Reconstruct Challenge is led by the UofL Health Equity Innovation Hub (HEIH), in partnership with Render, an innovation studio, with funding from the Kentucky Department for Public Health’s Office of Health Equity and private operating foundation, Access Ventures, according to a news release.
Each of the 15 winners will be awarded $100,000 grants to further their ideas and will participate in a 12- to 18-month proof-of-concept phase where they will work with community partners and UofL researchers to pilot their innovations in the Louisville region. After this period, innovators will have the opportunity to receive additional follow-on funding to scale their innovations, the release said.
The winners, listed below, also present their innovations at Startup Week Louisville.
Reconstruct Challenge: Food Justice
- Feed Louisville
- Change Today, Change Tomorrow
- Journey Foods
- The Nori Project
- Free from Market
Reconstruct Challenge: Maternal and Child Health
- Cook’s Nook
- Melanated Healthcare
- Every Mother’s Advocate
- Granny’s Birth Initiative
- Navigate Maternity
Reconstruct Challenge: Health Access
- Malama Health
- Kare Mobile
- Maro
- Kyndly
- Zenyor Healthcare
More than 100 organizations submitted proposals for this iteration of the Reconstruct Challenge focused on health equity, with applications from across the country. Proposals were evaluated by a panel of experts from the Louisville community, industry experts and academic researchers.
Of those receiving grants, 80% are women-led and 67% are led by Black or brown founders. Eight of the 15 winners are from the Louisville area with the remaining seven originating from across the U.S.
In addressing challenges marginalized and low-income individuals and families face surrounding health equity, the startups' and nonprofits' innovations include autonomous grocery stores, care communication platforms, fresh food vending machines and mobile dental clinics.
“We’re calling on our city to embrace these innovators,” Stacy Brooks from EDI Foundations, an expert in corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives who is working with winners to facilitate deployment of solutions in Louisville at industry partner pilot sites, said in the release. “The Louisville business community has a unique opportunity here. By collaborating with the Reconstruct winners, they can contribute to the development and implementation of cutting-edge solutions that directly address health disparities. This is about forming meaningful partnerships that yield tangible and sustainable impact for the foreseeable future.”
This Reconstruct Challenge builds on the work of UofL’s Health Equity Innovation Hub, an innovative partnership including UofL, Humana Inc. and the Humana Foundation. The Hub addresses health equity to remove the structural barriers to health for the populations it serves and focuses on solving important health equity challenges through research, innovation and talent pipeline development.
The challenge follows the prior successes of the two previous Reconstruct Challenges launched by Access Ventures in 2019 and 2022 address housing and barriers to employment, respectively. This Reconstruct Challenge series, executed by Render, is funded by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services and Access Ventures.
