Future Health — A Global Initiative by Abu Dhabi / Department of Health — Abu Dhabi Opportunities Opportunities

Opportunity Details

The Future Health Challenge 2026 attracted 393 submissions from innovators across 68 countries, reflecting growing global momentum behind more anticipatory approaches to healthcare.

Built around the theme “Building Anticipatory Health Systems through Population Sensing”, the Challenge invited participants to explore how health systems can identify risk earlier, improve equitable access to care, and strengthen long-term resilience.

Referring to the use of real-time data, digital tools, environmental signals, and community-level intelligence, ‘population sensing’ seeks to identify emerging health risks earlier and enable more proactive intervention.

Alongside the Winner, Distinguished Finalists, and broader finalist teams, the Future Health Challenge has recognised a set of semi-finalist and Honourable Mention teams whose work demonstrates strong potential to advance more anticipatory, population-based health systems. Selected from a highly competitive global pool, these teams reflect the breadth of innovation emerging across data, digital health, and community-anchored intelligence.

The following semi-finalist teams have been recognised for solutions that translate population sensing into practical health insight:

ScanForm by Quantitative Engineering Design / QED.ai — Malawi

ScanForm is an AI-enabled solution that digitises handwritten epidemic data in real time, supporting faster analysis and response in low-resource settings. By converting analogue health records into usable digital intelligence, the platform helps strengthen early warning and surveillance systems at scale.

Sovereign Workforce Health by Nabta Health — United Arab Emirates

Sovereign Workforce Health uses AI to identify early clinical risks across insured workforces, enabling earlier intervention and more proactive care. Designed to operate within existing health and insurance ecosystems, the platform enables earlier identification of risk across defined workforces, supporting preventative intervention and long-term system resilience.

FacilityPulse by eSHIFT Partner Network — Switzerland

By analysing citizen feedback at scale through an open-source AI toolkit, FacilityPulse transforms lived healthcare experiences into actionable system intelligence, helping decision-makers identify service gaps in real time.

Anugami byThe Antara Foundation — India

Anugami provides a digital intelligence layer that connects fragmented health systems around women and children. By integrating data across services, the platform supports coordinated care and improves visibility across critical early-life health pathways.

Ethnohealth AI by Environmental Women Organisation — Colombia

Ethnohealth AI is an indigenous early warning system that integrates traditional medicine knowledge into predictive health intelligence. Grounded in community-led insight, the solution demonstrates how ancestral health knowledge can inform population-level foresight in culturally relevant ways.

In addition, ten Honourable Mention teams have been recognised for their contributions to the Challenge, reflecting the geographic and thematic diversity of high-potential approaches emerging globally:

Disease Surveillance

• Rahat by Rumsan – Nepal: Reducing Dengue outbreak risks using AI to turn fragmented health and weather data to trigger anticipatory medical response and resource coordination

• DIGAMS by Impala Healthtech Research – Uganda: Transforms routine diagnostic data into real-time disease surveillance insights, helping health systems detect outbreaks earlier and strengthen antimicrobial stewardship

• DetectEverything by Opendream – Thailand: Anticipatory Biosurveillance powered by Metagenomics and AI

Community Health Access

• Health Nest by Yanai Health – Zimbabwe: Expanding access to preventative care through mobile community diagnostics and long-term monitoring of blood pressure and glucose

• Operating in-clinic pharmacies by Tembelea Health – Kenya: Using software and AI to operate in-clinic pharmacies to help clinic owners focus on delivering better care to their communities.

Predictive Intelligence & AI

• GENMOR-AI by Halia Therapeutics – United Arab Emirates: Leveraging human genetic resilience through AI to predict, prevent, and pre-empt disease before clinical onset.

• SANKET Health Intelligence by Khushi Baby – India: AI-enabled Geospatial Intelligence for Public Health Action

• Listening at Scale by AI Diagnostics – South Africa: Using a digital stethoscope, AI models, and population data to identify tuberculosis hotspots early

• Axeris by Axeris – United States: An AI platform protecting patients from dangerous, unnecessary, and overpriced prescriptions that jeopardize their health.

• Mapp App of Rural Health Risks by Campo-Sano – United States: Integrates existing enviro data with AI-forecasts of air quality & weather to anticipate local environmental health risks for farmworkers.

Together, these innovations demonstrate how anticipatory health systems are evolving globally, from AI-enabled disease surveillance and genomics to community-based sensing and culturally grounded prevention models. While each solution addresses different healthcare challenges, all share a common goal: enabling earlier insight, earlier intervention, and more resilient health systems.

Representatives from semi-finalist and selected Honourable Mention teams will be invited to showcase their innovations at the Abu Dhabi Future Health Summit, taking place from 20 to 22 October 2026. The Summit will provide direct access to global policymakers, investors, and health leaders, supporting the next phase of development, collaboration, and potential scaling of these solutions.

Future Health continues to advance a year-round programme across longevity and precision medicine, intelligent health and AI, health system resilience and sustainability, and investment in life sciences, to empower better health worldwide. The platform will continue to introduce new opportunities for global collaboration and discovery of impactful solutions throughout the year.

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