Review & assessment · 2026
Technical Assessor, Wellcome Snakebite Innovation Prize
Independent expert review of entries to a £6.25 million challenge prize that aims to improve outcomes for people affected by snakebite.
The Wellcome Snakebite Innovation Prize is a £6.25 million challenge prize that backs technological, social, logistical and systems-level innovations to strengthen community responses to snakebite, accelerate access to appropriate care and improve the delivery of treatment, in support of the World Health Organization’s goal of halving snakebite deaths and disability by 2030.
As a member of the pool of independent Technical Assessors, I carried out the first-line review of entries across the prize’s two tracks, Launch (early-stage concepts) and Growth (solutions already in validation or scale-up). Each entry was scored against the published judging criteria and written up in a structured assessor judgment for the Judging Panel:
- Impact and the credibility of the pathway to patient outcomes
- Innovation and contribution to the field
- Implementation pathway and sustainability
- Understanding of the end user, including communities, front-line workers and health systems
- Team capability and project delivery, including budget realism
- Safety and ethics, as a pass/fail gate
Assessing this portfolio meant reading across very different solution types (digital tools, diagnostics, community networks, logistics, training) and judging them with the same evidence-first lens I use as a research and innovation consultant: what is asserted, what is demonstrated, and what would it take for this to work where snakebite is most harmful.
Assessment content is confidential. This page describes the role only; no entry, applicant or score is disclosed.