Problem
Getting cancer treatment in Africa is not straightforward. For millions of patients, the journey from noticing a symptom to receiving care involves long delays, missed referrals and a system that was not built with them in mind. Many patients lose contact with healthcare providers before they ever reach a specialist. The result is that cancer, which is treatable when caught early, becomes fatal because the path to treatment is too broken to follow.
Science
We challenged student entrepreneurs to build solutions to exactly this kind of problem through the Ideas to Impact Challenge (i2i), an annual competition run by the Gandhi Centre for Inclusive Innovation at ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Business School. Teams pitch ideas that could reach one million people, judged on the clarity of the problem they identify, the realism of their solution and the sustainability of their model. In 2026, eight teams competed at the final pitching event on 2 June. The winning team built OncoGrid, a digital cancer navigation and care coordination platform designed for underserved patients across Africa.
Outcome
OncoGrid won the 2026 i2i Challenge first prize of £5,000. The platform connects patients from their first symptoms through to diagnosis and treatment using mobile tools and WhatsApp, combining intelligent triage, connected referrals, remote support and community-based navigation. It targets the specific failures that cause patients to drop out of care: delays, loss to follow-up and fragmented treatment pathways. Two further teams received seed funding of £3,000 and £2,000 respectively for ideas targeting early kidney disease detection and income recovery for smallholder cocoa farmers in Africa, bringing the total seed funding awarded in 2026 to £10,000 across three ventures.
Change
Each of the three winning teams receives not only seed funding but ongoing mentorship and business support from experts at ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Business School, giving them the best possible chance of turning a pitch into a working venture. The i2i Challenge demonstrates that student entrepreneurs, given the right platform and the right support, can identify and begin to address some of the world's most pressing health and economic challenges.