My profile - Help review

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Hello everyone.
I’m a prospective applicant for the Uk global talent visa under exceptional promise.
I’m a Clinical Informaticist, Data scientist, AI engineer, and founder of a B2B health tech startup. We develop bespoke SaaS health tech products and diagnostic tools for healthcare providers in Accra.
I intend to apply under exceptional promise, and these are the evidence I intend to use to fulfill each criteria

Mandatory Criteria: Recognition as a potential leading talent

1. As founder of Healthtech startup:
I. Certificate of Incorporation business registered 2018
ii. Pre-seed funding of $5000 and Series A funding of ($100,000) from Angel investors.
iii. Funding documents, equity, and shares cert. – funding round was listed in TechCrunch
iv. Invoices, receipt, and contracts of products developed for Government and private practices hospitals in Accra.

Award: In 2018, I participated in a Hackathon on tech innovation in healthcare, and I came first in the competition with a grand price of ₵15000 which is approximately $2500 and $2000 in perks and cloud credits:
I. Screenshot of the email notifying me of selection for the final stage of the competition
ii. Picture of the presentation of the giant check to the winner at the event
iii. certificate for the award
iv. National Newspaper about the article about the hackathon, the prize and the winner(me)

Optional Criteria 1: Innovation as a founder of a product-led digital technology. Early this year, I developed a Machine Learning Model that screens retinal fundus images for eye disorders such as, Glaucoma, Diabetic Retinopathy, and Pathological Myopia. Currently, it’s used in 5 Government Ophthalmic Clinics in Accra (This is the first in Ghana) :

I. Letter of support: Review from a top Consultant Ophthalmologist about the ML Model
ii. Software Architecture noting my contribution (developed the source code)
iii. Software documentation
iv. News clippings in a notable tech site in Africa about the product

Optional Criteria 2: significant technical, commercial, or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as a founder: My startup’s Electronic Health Record System is used across five government hospitals (each hospital’s daily patient attendance is an average of 300)

  1. Signed contracts agreement with the state ministry of health for the development and deployment of hospital software across its five maternity hospitals in Accra
  2. Screenshot of Hospital Software (couldn’t share code to open source as par the contract with the hospitals)
  3. Dashboard noting quarterly attendance of patients
  4. A newspaper article about Ghana’s health system (the article discussed a recent installation of hospital software and also mentioned its name

Reference Letters:

I. Reference letter from my university professor, a leading Biomedical systems developer in Ghana. He knows my work as he has offered technical assistance in developing my startups’ tech products and is my mentor.

ii. Reference letter from a Senior IT manager of the state ministry of health. I worked with him as a Clinical Informaticist and Data analyst while I was an employee with the state government. Also worked with him when I got the contract to develop and deploy hospital software in state government hospitals.

III. Reference letter from a CTO of a fintech company in Nigeria I have also worked closely with and know my work.

My concerns: My new startup website domain name was registered in 2021, even when the business was incorporated in 2018. The old domain got expired and it got traded by the time I was about to renew . Wouldn’t this be an issue? My ability to secure deals was because, I had worked in some government hospitals in Ghana, which has made it easy for me to have access to the medical directors of these hospitals to pitch my proposals

Also, what other way can I prove traction as impact? My business model is B2B, and the product isn’t available to the general public.

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Hi mate, I am also a prospective candidate. Your profile seems strong based on what you have mentioned. BTW to answer your question based on my experience as an entrepreneur is as follows: Since, your company is B2B, you could list the businesses that your service/product is being offered to and if possible ask your clients if they could provide a ballpark number of how many of their clients are using your service/product (that itself is traction as well). You could utilize that confirmation email from your client as part of the evidence for traction (but of course you have to be selective as you only get limited number of evidence document).
Once again, this is my interpretation and I am I am a prospective candidate like you. Better to get confirmation from alumni here. All the best with your application.

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  1. I think your profile looks good, however, some of your evidence could be merged into one. For the mandatory criteria, i will merge ii & iii as a single piece of evidence if you are referring to the same funding round. I have also noticed that winning an hackathon is not enough, you are better off making a case of how the funding and participation has contributed to your business growth. So you may need to put some context to the documents to help the assessor understand why the evidence is useful. It appears small size Seed funding doesn’t impress some assessors. I am making a general comment about funding based on notes from rejection proforma I have seen.

  2. I am not sure if winning an hackathon is considered an award. I think it could fly for promise route, that said, you may need to state that it is recognised nationally or internationally. "You have received nationally or internationally recognised prizes or awards for excellence specifically in the digital technology sector.

  3. Whats the difference between the software architecture & Documentation? Sometimes it is best to merge two similar evidence to strengthen a single evidence. You can do this in three pages.

  4. Do you mean to write optional criteria 3? what you have listed under optional criteria 2 do not fall under that eligibility criteria. Don’t make the mistake of selecting the wrong criteria. If you are using the last four evidence as optional criteria 3 , you need to show impact. In my opinion, I think you may have a good chance as a healthtech entrepreneur but your evidence need to be well put together. Read the updated guideline.

As for your recommendation letter, is the professor a tech expert, is his work known? Senior IT manager for Government agency is not strong enough, his he a known tech expert? I think someone in this forum was recently rejected for using an IT Director from a government agency in his country and the feedback suggested it wasn’t good enough.

I don’t work for Tech Nation, these are just my opinion, based on my understanding of the guideline and feedback from other unsuccessful applications I have seen.

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Thanks for the feedback @Francisca_Chiedu that’s a typo error, I meant optional criteria 3. I intend to show impact with the dashboard of the hospital software which shows the total number of registered patients that also translates to income as every attendance I billed for consultation. Before the use of this software, they find it difficult to track patients’ attendance, and also there has been a high level of fraud amongst staff as their process wasn’t automated.
My University professor is a tech expert and well know in the tech ecosystem. He has a couple of healthtech products of high value and sales.
As asked, what other way can I prove traction?

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Ok. When you put the screenshot on the dashboard, ensure to explain how it shows impact, don’t assume the assessor understands your screenshot. Good luck!