HelpMum, a social enterprise birthed with the mission to salvage maternal and infant mortality rate in Nigeria has won the startup category of the United Nations Youth Pitch competition from among 12 social entrepreneurs selected from across the world.
The startup was represented by its Founder, Dr. Adereni Abiodun, who pitched alongside other innovators.
The ‘Start and Scale-Up for SDGs’ at Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018 which held last week at the United Nations Head office in Geneva Switzerland is a partnership between the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Politecnico di Milano and Capacity Centre Italy.
#GEW2018: Dr Adereni Abiodun just pitched to win $5k to help Nigerian mums avoid infant and maternal mortality using his specialized kit with essential tools for their survival. #Start4SDGs pic.twitter.com/QbQ5SBMRgF
— UNCTAD (@UNCTAD) November 15, 2018
The UNCTAD is meant to promote the development-friendly integration of developing countries into the world economy and promote the cardinal values of the Sustainable development goals.
See Also: Early Stage, Advanced Start-ups Win Big at 2018 AgriHack Pitch
Helpmum won the StartUp section taking home 5,000USD in impact grant ahead of other participating social impact startups from different parts of the world. HelpMum is the first start-up from Nigeria to participate at the UNCTAD Startup Pitch as well as the first to win that section of the contest.
These are good times for the social enterprise who was also recently selected as one of the 12 finalists in the Google Impact Challenge, Nigeria where they will get 125,000 USD from Google. This will help them to expand the base of their digital Health solution across Nigeria as they continue to tackle maternal and infant mortality in Nigeria. This they hope to achieve by working towards making sure every pregnant woman in rural areas have access to clean birth kit which will help them have safe and clean child delivery.