WoW Women in FemTech | Anne-Isabelle (Annie) Cameron and Tina Assi, Grand Challenges Canada (GCC)

Interview by Marija Butkovic

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Anne-Isabelle (Annie) Cameron is a Program Associate with Grand Challenges Canada (GCC). Backed by the Government of Canada, private investors, family foundations and multilateral organizations, GCC has made over 1,200 global health impact investments across 90+ countries over the last decade. At GCC, Annie works at multiple investments stages including seed ($100K-$250K CAD) and transition-to-scale (up to $1M CAD) levels. Annie has been integral to the launch and success of GCC's Options for Pregnancy Termination Innovation Initiative (OPTions Initiative), leads investment negotiations, and conducts due diligence on commercial and non-commercial investments for the Transition-to-Scale portfolio with a specific focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Annie has a background in international development and economics, field experience in East Africa, and a passion for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls globally.

Tina Assi is the Director of Targeted Innovation at Grand Challenges Canada (GCC). At GCC, Tina leads impact investments in innovations that improve the lives of underserved women, girls and children in low-resource settings. In this capacity, Tina is GCC’s lead on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for the organization’s Transition-to-Scale portfolio, and provides strategic oversight on GCC’s targeted portfolios: Saving Lives at Birth (SLAB), Saving Brains, Global Mental Health, and the Options for Pregnancy Termination Innovation Initiative (OPTions Initiative). With over ten years of experience in epidemiology, global health, and business, Tina brings robust experience to GCC and has been central in helping the organization design its strategy and realize its objectives around advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Tina holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and an MPH and PhD in epidemiology from the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh.

Annie, Tina, welcome to the WoW community! Tell us a bit more about you and your projects so far. 

Thank you for the warm welcome! We are excited to be joining the WoW community. We are part of the team at Grand Challenges Canada (GCC), one of the largest impact-first investors in Canada. The bold ideas GCC supports integrate science and technology, social and business innovation – known as Integrated Innovation®. GCC has supported a pipeline of over 1,000 innovations in 95 countries and estimates that these innovations have the potential to save up to 1.6 million lives and improve up to 35 million lives by 2030.

We are leading one of GCC’s newest portfolios, the Options for Pregnancy Termination Innovation (OPTions) Initiative, which is focused on next generation methods of abortion and improving access to safe abortion in low- and middle-income countries. The OPTions Initiative launched in November 2018 and currently supports 19 innovators implementing their ideas across 16 different countries.  The second round of the OPTions Initiative launched in November 2019, with a Request for Proposals that is accepting applications for $250,000 grants until April 14, 2020, 3:00 pm ET. 

What does your current job role entail?

Tina is the Director of Targeted Innovation at GCC, meaning that she provides strategic oversight on the OPTions Initiative, Saving Lives at Birth, Saving Brains, and Global Mental Health portfolios. Tina is also the lead on sexual and reproductive health and rights for GCC’s Transition to Scale portfolio. Annie is the Program Associate focused on the OPTions Initiative, including working closely with Tina on the launch of the initiative, and is also involved in the Transition to Scale portfolio by leading investment negotiations and conducting due diligence on commercial and non-commercial investments with a specific focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights.

What are your projects you are currently working on?

Our primary focus right now is the OPTions Initiative Round 2 Request for Proposals, which is currently open and accepting applications until April 14, 2020, 3:00 pm ET. Grants of up to $250,000 are available to support the development and testing of: 1) next generation methods of pregnancy termination and 2) new approaches to increasing early access to existing abortion products and services in low- and middle-income countries. One of our primary goals for this round is to support new entrants to the safe abortion space. We are aiming to source ideas from innovators who have fresh perspectives and novel ways of addressing the need for access to safe abortion. These are seed grants, so we are open to blue-sky ideas that are at any stage of development, including very early stage. Another one of our objectives is to increase the number of next generation methods of abortion that we support. For both of these reasons, we are really excited to be connected with the WoW community and broader FemTech space, and we strongly encourage WoW members and FemTech innovators to apply for funding and share the opportunity widely!  

FemTech and HealthTech industries are on the rise, with more and more innovative businesses emerging every day globally. Pregnancy as a category has grown not only in the number of many new products for this audience, but finally startups in this space are finally getting more funding and industry corporations and governments are recognising the value and need for innovation in this field. According to 'Abortion Worldwide: Uneven Progress and Unequal Access' report from 2018, as of 2010–2014, an estimated 36 abortions occur each year per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in developing regions, compared with 27 in developed regions. The abortion rate declined significantly in developed regions since 1990–1994; however, no significant change occurred in developing regions. 42% of women of reproductive age live in the 125 countries where abortion is highly restricted (prohibited altogether, or allowed only to save a woman’s life or protect her health). The vast majority (93%) of countries with such highly restrictive laws are in developing regions. How does the Options for Pregnancy Termination Innovation (OPTions) Initiative fit into this mission and what are some of the goals you are trying to achieve with this challenge? 

There are more than 25 million unsafe abortion annually, the vast majority of which (97%) occur in developing parts of the world. As a result, about 7 million women and girls are admitted to health facilities with complications and between 22,800 and 31,000 die annually. Unsafe abortion is one of the top causes of global maternal mortality, and it is entirely preventable. The goal of the OPTions Initiative is to support Bold Ideas with Big Impact® for women’s and girls’ access to safe abortion in low- and middle-income countries. We are seeking innovative and transformative approaches that put women and girls in control of where, when and how they terminate their pregnancy. OPTions has two areas of focus: innovations that improve access to safe abortion in low- and middle-income countries and next generation methods of abortion. For improving access to safe abortion in low- and middle-income countries, we aim to support local innovators that are finding novel ways of: increasing the number of trained providers and available safe services; improving access to information; combatting stigma by reframing and normalizing abortion; decentralizing and de-medicalizing abortion care; reducing economic barriers; reclassifying existing abortion methods to fit within relevant regulatory frameworks; or any other pathway of achieving improved access. Next generation methods of abortion could benefit women worldwide, and we support innovators based in any country for this area of focus. We are looking for a method of pregnancy termination that could provide one or more improvements over existing methods, such as: the ability to be effectively administered at later stages in gestation; ability for women and girls to self-administer with greater autonomy and privacy; improved ease of compliance; reduced side effects and pain; improved stability profile; improve cost-effectiveness; or improved accessibility within existing regulatory frameworks. Once again, one of the goals we are trying to achieve with this initiative is to support new entrants to the safe abortion space and to elevate the focus on safe abortion in the FemTech network. We are open to ideas at any stage from innovators across all disciplines. Through these investments, we hope to move the needle on access to existing and novel safe abortion care around the world. 

What are your biggest achievements to date?

We were very excited to have the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Canada’s Minister of International Development at the time, announce the launch of the OPTions Initiative during the opening plenary of the 2018 International Conference on Family Planning in Kigali, Rwanda. We were very proud to see Canada taking such a bold stance on the global issue of safe abortion, and were thrilled to see OPTions launch at one of the major international conferences on sexual and reproductive health and rights. 

What does the #WomenInTech movement mean to you? What are some of the challenges women are facing today in the tech industry?

Women are better positioned to design technology for women, however there is an immense gender gap in venture capital funding, with only about 2% of funding being invested in women-led enterprises. Historically, women’s needs have been largely ignored, and that has resulted in a dearth of solutions for women’s issues. To us, the #WomenInTech movement signifies a shift towards putting the power in the hands of women, which is what the OPTions Initiative aims to do by enabling women and girls to decide if, when, where, and how they safely terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Nearly 85% of the innovators we currently support are women. We are open to supporting any innovators and know many incredible men working in this space as well, but we were very pleased to see that 85% of successful applicants in our competitive gender-blind review process turned out to be women. 

What will be the key trends in the health tech and fem tech industry in the next 5 years and where do you see it heading? 

This is an exciting new decade for the FemTech industry, which is estimated to be worth $50 billion by 2025. The idea that technology for women is a “niche space” is being widely discredited, as it targets 50% of the global population. The expansion of this market will mean that women’s issues that have been overlooked, under-funded, and stigmatized for centuries will finally be brought to the forefront for people to address in a meaningful way. This includes everything that impacts women from cradle to grave, including expanding the available choices for family planning, fertility, sexual health, and menopause. Safe abortion is often still under-represented in this discussion, but we hope that will change over the next five years and there will be an increased focus on not only new technologies for contraceptives, but also for managing unwanted or unplanned pregnancies. We see the overall key trend of the FemTech movement being putting decision-making in the hands of women themselves to take control of their own lives and bodies.

Who are your 3 inspirational women and / or businesses in health tech and fem tech?

We are inspired by so many different leaders working in this field, including all of the innovators that OPTions currently supports. A few that are particularly tech-focused include RKG Global Consulting Inc., doctHERs, and Women on the Web. RKG is a new start-up that is developing and testing an integrated mobile health tool that can facilitate self-management of medical abortion for Venezuelan women living in a fragile setting. A similar tool has been piloted in British Columbia and it is now being adapted for a conflict-affected setting. DoctHERs is a “digital health platform that matches the underutilized capacity of female doctors to the unmet need of health consumers via technology”.  Through OPTions funding, they will deploy frontline care coordinators, who will use tablets to connect marginalized women and girls in Pakistan, including female factory workers, to a nationwide network of safe abortion providers and family planning services via HD video-consultation. Last but not least, Women on the Web is one of the leading organizations committed to ensuring safe access to abortion worldwide through various forms of technology, ranging from telemedicine to an “abortion robot” that is remotely controlled to provide abortion pills to women in restrictive settings. Women on the Web is continuously innovating to find novel and effective ways to reach women with essential information and services. If you are interested, you can read about the other innovators we support through OPTions on our website.

Website: https://optionsinitiative.org/

Twitter: @OPTinnovate

Facebook: @OPTionsInitiative

LinkedIn: Grand Challenges Canada

Instagram: @grandchallengescanada


Grants up to $250,000 are available from the Options for Pregnancy Termination Innovation (OPTions) Initiative! The goal of the OPTions Initiative is to support Bold Ideas with Big Impact® for women’s and girls’ access to safe abortion in low- and middle-income countries. We seek innovative and transformative approaches that put women and girls in control of where, when and how they terminate their pregnancy. The focus of this call is therefore to support the development and testing of:

  1. next generation methods of pregnancy termination (open to innovators worldwide)

  2. new approaches to increasing early access to existing abortion products and services (open to innovators in low- and middle-income countries)

Innovations at any stage are welcome, and innovators from all fields are encouraged to apply by April 14, 2020, 3:00 pm ET


This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, founder and CEO of Women of Wearables. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship and diversity. Visit marijabutkovic.co.uk or follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic.