Participating entries had to be innovative health solutions in the areas of Maternal and Child Health; HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health; and TB and Malaria. The winning initiatives include tuberculosis detection by trainer rats; a social venture focusing on maternity care; a community-driven, sustainable approach to addressing health issues in rural Africa; pads and comics transforming opportunity, health and productivity; and using soccer to empower young women.

The winners were:

- Tomike Health Project, Nigeria. Tomike Health is a social venture that aims to set a new standard for job creation and maternity care in West Africa. Tomike combines business, job training and clinical innovations to create a fully self-sustaining and scalable solution that provides reproductive health and antipoverty services.

- Grassroots Soccer, South Africa. SKILLZ Street (SS) is an all-girls soccer-based programme. Developed by Grassroots Soccer (GRS) it combines HIV educational activities; sexual and reproductive health; rights (SRHR) knowledge; and soccer. SS also partners with the Thuthuzela Care Center (TCC) for medical and social services.

- Wild4Life, Tanzania. Wild4Life connects communities in rural Africa to local health services by partnering with non-health organisations with deep roots, broad networks and existing infrastructure.

- Zana Africa, Kenya. Zana Africa creates radically affordable sanitary pads, coupled with free health education for women and girls in East Africa. Fun, standardized, interactive comic-based health pamphlets deliver critical health education so girls make informed decisions and measurably increase their productivity and health.

- APOPO, Mozambique. APOPO trains rats to detect TB in Tanzania and Mozambique. Combining quality research, social impact, and innovation, they deliver a significant intervention in landmine and TB detection. To date, APOPO's HeroRATs have detected over 4500 TB patients originally misdiagnosed by local hospitals.

A panel of judges selected the top finalists and in keeping with GOOD's crowd-sourced participation and community-building ethos, the GOOD community then voted online for their favorite projects. After community voting the panel of judges selected the five winners from among the top-voted submissions.

"The winners of the GOOD Pioneers of Health Challenge are doing some ground-breaking, life changing work in Africa. Their creative thinking around health innovations is having a positive impact on the communities in which they work and could be duplicated in communities around the world," says Casey Caplowe, co-founder and chief creative officer, GOOD Worldwide.

The GOOD Pioneers of Health Challenge is part of the GOOD Global Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Challenge builds on the model and insights of the GOOD Exchange, which convened community development leaders for a weeklong fellowship in Los Angeles earlier in 2014. One of the fellowship participants, the South Africa-based Name Your Hood, is among the Pioneers of Health Challenge partners, facilitating the conference in Cape Town.

For the conference in Cape Town, the Western Cape Department of Health collaborated with GOOD to connect the winners with health innovations across the Cape Peninsula. The four day conference included a tour of health facilities, including the Khayelitsha Hospital, Groote Schuur and the Chris Barnard Museum.

The conference also included talks by representatives from the Bertha Institute on 'Systems Thinking in Innovation', Neuro-Surgeon Ettienne van der Walt and health innovator, Zameer Brey. Photographer, Damien Schumann presented his TB photographic project and all participants visited the Dunoon Medical Clinic and the Chapel Street Clinic in Woodstock.

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