"The first Techstars startup accelerator for social enterprises just got off the ground. Called Techstars Impact Accelerator, the three-month Austin-based program has 10 tech-based businesses, with operations situated in a variety of countries, from the U.S. to Nigeria.
As you’d expect, the companies are focused on addressing a social or environmental problem. But in addition, their businesses are linked inextricably to their mission. “The core way we looked at this space is the extent to which the impact is tied to the business model,” says Managing Director Zoe Schlag.
While most of them are early stage, they’re also live in one way or another, with, say, revenues and/or customers.
One such company is MDaaS Global, which aims to operate low-cost diagnostic and primary care centers in Africa. Co-founder Oluwasoga Oni, whose father is a doctor in a rural town in Nigeria, got the germ of the idea while studying engineering at MIT. He saw that physicians like his father serving low-to-middle income people there struggled to buy and maintain medical equipment, because their patients couldn’t pay enough to make the investment cost-effective."
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