Jesus Salas, the Mx Challenge Program Director at Geekdom, explained the company’s decision to mount an incentive-based competition in a recent Q&A: “San Antonio is a city that has one of the strongest connections in the United States with Mexico.
Most of the connection that San Antonio has with Mexico is around the tourism area. It is a very generous relationship, but we are looking on the long term.
“Today, in Mexico the government is spending millions of dollars on the development of incubators and accelerators throughout Mexico to give birth to hundreds of startups,” he went on. “So the main reason of funding the Mx Challenge is to strengthen the connection with Mexico on the innovation and entrepreneurial area.”
The competition will officially kick off in March of 2016, and will be open to any individual or team that meets the LLC and visa requirements. It will conclude on September 2016, at which time the prize of $500,000 USD will be awarded to whichever individual, team or organization is able to create and implement a repeatable model that will assist Mexican tech companies to open active offices in San Antonio.
By contrast, Operation Blue Sky seeks to address an ongoing problem of dispropionate access and health standards in Canada’s Aboriginal communities. Despite being renowned for its health care system, which is a source of pride for many Canadians; statistically, First Nations, Inuit and Métis people experience considerably lower health outcomes than other Canadians.
For instance, according to Health Canada, within Aboriginal communities, heart disease is 1.5 times higher than the national average, Type 2 diabetes is 3 to 5 times higher, and tuberculosis infection rates are 8 to 10 times higher, compared with non-Aboriginal Canadians. A 2013 report by the National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health (NCCAH) also indicated an increased risk for many other health problems.
These include high infant and young child mortality, infectious diseases, malnutrition and stunted growth, lower life expectancy, alcohol and drug dependency, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, increased risk of violence and abuse (physical and sexual), and an increased risk of disease related to environmental contamination.
MNP, a Canadian accounting, tax and consulting firm that has served Aboriginal communities for over 25 years, has witnessed many attempts at reforming this situation. These have included Aboriginal-led initiatives in recent years, where creative partnerships, new technologies, e-health solutions, and giving local communities full control over their health care spending has led to positive outcomes.
In addition, the federal government has increased health care spending for Aboriginal people ($2.4 billion in 2011/2012) in the hopes of narrowing this rather conspicious gap. In spite of all this, the problem of health and socio-economic inequities persist between the Aboriginal population and the general Canadian population.
As such, MNP is seeking a crowd-sourced solution to the problem. MNP manager Nicole Asselin had the following to say about her company’s decision to go this route on March 17th, the day the challenge officially kicked off:
“For MNP, being one of the largest financial service providers to Aboriginals in the country and knowing first hand their plight when it comes to matters of health, we believed that crowd sourcing through an incentive prize challenge could truly make a difference in the lives of so many people in these communities that the excitement became palpable. We felt all along that this was an extremely worthy philanthropic endeavour but only through this process, were we able to allow ourselves to believe that it could possibly lead to reality and therefore became something we just had to do.”
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