Major brands including Reckitt Benckiser, Aviva, Microsoft, Legal & General and Facebook have joined forces with academia and the third sector to launch a global challenge to find new ways to prevent a repetition of the coronavirus pandemic through the innovative use of data.
The Trinity Challenge provides a £10m prize fund for breakthrough solutions to ensure one billion more people are better protected against health emergencies.
Covid-19 has highlighted the power of data in helping to understand and tackle health emergencies, but it has also revealed the challenges in getting the right data to the right people at the right time.
The Trinity Challenge sets a series of urgent questions to harness the potential of data and analytics to learn and share lessons from the great innovations made to combat Covid and to build resilience against future health emergencies.
The £10m of funding will be made available to teams to support and scale their innovations across areas including economics, behavioural sciences, and epidemiology.
The Challenge has been convened by Dame Sally Davies, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Its founding members represent a diverse coalition of organisations across the private, public and social sectors, who are united by the common aim of using data and advanced analytics to develop insights and practical actions to contribute to a world better protected from health emergencies.
Launching the Challenge, Dame Sally said: “There will be another Covid, and there is an opportunity for the international community to learn lessons now and prepare for the future. The Trinity Challenge is a recognition by business, academia and philanthropy of the need for new, breakthrough ideas and approaches to beat the next pandemic.”
The Trinity Challenge is calling on global participants to submit impact-led ideas on how to safeguard health and economic systems from the threat of global health emergencies.
Submissions that make the selection will be supported with access to people, data and resources from founding members, to maximise the effectiveness of their solutions and leverage the expertise and innovation of these institutions.
Challenge teams will focus on potential solutions that support and strengthen the global public health ecosystem in a robust and inclusive way. Solutions will be fielded globally through an open and accessible submission process to bring the best minds and ideas together with the aim of developing insights that will benefit the world in the future.
The founding members are Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Brunswick Group, University of Cambridge, Discovery Limited, Facebook, Global Virome Project, Google, HKUMed, Imperial College London, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Internews, LSE, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, Northeastern University, Optum, Tencent, Zenysis Technology.
Related stories
Brands’ response to Covid will define business for years
Forget material world, here come caring, sharing Brits
Back to the future: media consumption turned on head
Crisis-hit consumers more willing to try out new brands
Boom or bust: Online winners and losers of Covid-19
Brands walking a tightrope over coronavirus marketing
