Building solutions from within hospitals

SPARC, a global health-tech entrepreneurship school and accelerator program based at Sheba Medical Centre in Israel, launched its first Australian cohort in partnership with Monash University’s Velos Accelerator last week.

SPARC is a core initiative of the ARC Innovation Centre (Accelerate, Redesign, Collaborate), designed to transform healthcare by training clinicians and researchers to become entrepreneurs.

SPARC alumni have successfully established multiple companies and filed numerous patents. The program is a significant driver of the ARC ecosystem, which has seen startups generate over $4 billion in value and attract more than $1 billion in total funding.

The 12-week program delivered by SPARC bridges the gap between clinical ideas and market-ready solutions by teaching healthcare professionals how to build and scale medical startups. It offers courses that cover the entire journey from ideation and patent filing to pitching to international investors.

The local program opened with two intensive in-person days led by Israeli facilitators Liat Aaronson and Uri Mestechkin, who travelled from Sheba Medical Centre to work directly with the cohort.