Using Mobility To Improve Healthcare: Sprint Launches Startup Accelerator
We can all agree that healthcare always needs improving, right? Even the best healthcare in the world with the best doctors and nurses can be hamstrung by something as small as poor filing practices or the inability to send or receive medical records in a timely manner. There are always weak links in the chain so to speak, and as the adage goes, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.
Mobile technology can certainly help improve things. That’s true of a variety of fields including business and industry, but it’s also true in medicine. Healthcare could substantially benefit from improved communications, better access to research, better diagnostic and treatment tools, more immediate data, and so on, and Sprint is interested in fostering such innovation with a tech startup incubator called Sprint Accelerator.
Thank you to Sprint Faster and Technorati Media for being sponsors of this article. All opinions expressed here are my own.
Mobile technology can certainly help improve things. That’s true of a variety of fields including business and industry, but it’s also true in medicine. Healthcare could substantially benefit from improved communications, better access to research, better diagnostic and treatment tools, more immediate data, and so on, and Sprint is interested in fostering such innovation with a tech startup incubator called Sprint Accelerator.
Thank you to Sprint Faster for sponsoring this article. Get inspired by innovation and see what’s next at Sprint.com/faster.
Launching in collaboration with Techstars, Sprint Accelerator is a program that will take ten startups with innovative ideas for pushing mobile healthcare technology forward and throw them together for an intensive three-month session in Kansas City.
The teams will receive up to $120,000 in seed money as well as access to APIs and other carrier technology. Sprint will provide technical assistance in addition to access to testing and research facilities on Sprint’s campus.
The types of innovations companies could bring to the Sprint Accelerator program range widely, from wearable tech to practical products that help provide hands-on care to diagnostic tools to big data capabilities. Even benefits seemingly as simple as a better way to schedule patient medications are par for the course here; it’s wide open.
Sprint will provide mentorship for the startups participating in the program, and there are dozens of minds available, including many of Sprint’s and Techstar’s own executives, other tech company founders, and experts in finance and health. Dan Hesse himself, CEO of Sprint, is listed in that number as well.
The Sprint Accelerator office will be located in Kansas City, Missouri. It may seem a bit of a strange location, considering that it’s so far away from Silicon Valley or even densely populated areas such as New York or Boston, but it actually makes a lot of sense. For one thing, Sprint is headquartered there.
Further, Sprint identified Kansas City as one of 34 markets that has upwards of 100,000 healthcare workers. It’s also home to the University of Kansas Cancer Center, Children’s Mercy Hospital, the University of Missouri Kansas City medical school, and more. Kansas City is also home to the initial rollout of Google Fiber, so brilliant startups can make use of the smoking fast gigabit Internet speeds that Google has delivered to select “fiberhoods” throughout the city.
Interested parties should apply to the Sprint Accelerator program by January 6th, 2014 to be considered for participation. Finalists will be notified by January 15th, and the program itself begins on March 10th.
Launching in collaboration with Techstars, Sprint Accelerator is a program that will take ten startups with innovative ideas for pushing mobile healthcare technology forward and throw them together for an intensive three-month session in Kansas City.
The teams will receive up to $120,000 in seed money as well as access to APIs and other carrier technology. Sprint will provide technical assistance in addition to access to testing and research facilities on Sprint’s campus.
The types of innovations companies could bring to the Sprint Accelerator program range widely, from wearable tech to practical products that help provide hands-on care to diagnostic tools to big data capabilities. Even benefits seemingly as simple as a better way to schedule patient medications are par for the course here; it’s wide open.
Sprint will provide mentorship for the startups participating in the program, and there are dozens of minds available, including many of Sprint’s and Techstar’s own executives, other tech company founders, and experts in finance and health. Dan Hesse himself, CEO of Sprint, is listed in that number as well.
The Sprint Accelerator office will be located in Kansas City, Missouri. It may seem a bit of a strange location, considering that it’s so far away from Silicon Valley or even densely populated areas such as New York or Boston, but it actually makes a lot of sense. For one thing, Sprint is headquartered there.
Further, Sprint identified Kansas City as one of 34 markets that has upwards of 100,000 healthcare workers. It’s also home to the University of Kansas Cancer Center, Children’s Mercy Hospital, the University of Missouri Kansas City medical school, and more. Kansas City is also home to the initial rollout of Google Fiber, so brilliant startups can make use of the smoking fast gigabit Internet speeds that Google has delivered to select “fiberhoods” throughout the city.
Interested parties should apply to the Sprint Accelerator program by January 6th, 2014 to be considered for participation. Finalists will be notified by January 15th, and the program itself begins on March 10th.
