Deadline: 15 February 2018

The Positive Action Challenges in collaboration with United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is seeking applications for The Start Free Challenge. This challenge is seeking replicable innovations at a local level which can speed up the progress being made to reach the super-fast-track target to reduce new HIV infections in children to less than 40,000 by 2018 and 20,000 by 2020.

New infections in children can be reduced if they and their mothers have timely access to antiretroviral drugs, infant prophylaxis and early infant diagnosis.

Challenge Attributes

As well as the usual Challenge criteria, the innovation must demonstrate that it has the following attributes:

• It demonstrates how clinics are collaborating with communities to provide a comprehensive response including reaching hard to reach families and those not accessing care
• It is making progress towards reaching the super-fast track 95-95-95 targets, including baseline (within 3 years and current)
• It can be replicated elsewhere
• It is sustainable

Prize Information

The Prize amount is $100,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• Positive Action Challenges are open to any applicant who is
  • an individuals under 18 are eligible to participate in any Challenge unless prohibited by applicable law;
  • a group of individuals;
  • one or more public or private entities, including, without limitation, universities, academic institutions, not-for-profit entities and private sector organisations.
• Unless otherwise restricted by the Challenge, the Applicant may be from any geographic area.
• The Applicant must comply with these Challenge Rules and all funding rules associated with any Challenge prizes.
• The Applicant may not be a healthcare provider who is qualified to prescribe medicinal products or directly or indirectly influence the use of such products.
• In the event the Applicant is a governmental entity or a governmental employee, ViiV Healthcare reserves the right to conduct an evaluation to ensure Applicant’s eligibility with these Challenge Rules and any applicable Challenge criteria.
• In addition, ViiV Healthcare reserves the right to evaluate the eligibility of any government official or the eligibility of Applicants that reside in a jurisdiction that restricts or prohibits contests.
• The Applicant, including each individual member of an Applicant group, may not be an employee of ViiV Healthcare or any of its affiliates, a judge of the Challenge in question, or any other party involved with the design, production, execution or distribution of the Challenge or a member of the household of such an individual.
• The Applicant must not be or have a member who is currently on the Excluded Parties List maintained by the United States government.
• There is no maximum team size.
• Each Applicant must assign at least one named team leader.
• If Applicant teams include members under 18 years of age, those members are required to submit a Parent Consent Form signed by a parent or legal guardian.

Judging Criteria

In addition to the below criteria, solutions must demonstrate how the challenge statement is met in the context of resource-limited settings without contradicting national breastfeeding guidelines for women living with HIV in the resource-limited settings targeted.

• People Centred: Entries may focus on a process, technology or other method but the ultimate benefit must be measurable in terms of impact on people’s lives. Must ensure privacy, demonstrate an ability to not perpetuate stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and enhance active community participation in solution development.
• Replicable: Entries can be replicated and adapted by others at low cost to ensure broader implementation and uptake as quickly as possible in similar settings.
• Scalable: Entries must demonstrate how they can be scaled beyond pilot programmes to large scale responses that can be implemented at greater/national scale.
• Affordable: Entries must demonstrate affordability (low-cost or no-cost to the end users) within resource limited settings or other similar settings as detailed in the individual challenges.
• Sustainable: Entries must demonstrate how they are implementable in the longer term (beyond the lifecycle of prize funding) using the resources that already exist or which can be incremental to existing service delivery.
• Achieving substantive change: Successful entries are expected to change the thoughts, processes and other barriers that prevent people living in resource limited settings from receiving the best care possible within the resources (financial and other) available, demonstrating a clear benefit to the people and systems targeted.

How to Apply

Interested applicants can apply online via given website.

For more information, please visit Start Free Challenge.