Crowdfunding platform Medifund goes live to help medical students fund their education

A few months back, Philippine startup Medifund introduced the idea of helping medical students pursue their education through a crowdfunding platform. The aim is to address the shortage of doctors in the Philippines and Asia. After a few months of development, the platform is now live for medical students worldwide.

Medifund founder Jossy Onwude is also a medical student. So he understand how costly it is to study medicine. He has also been a witness to friends having to stop attending school due to lack of financial means. This is the reason he came up with Medifund.

Jossy says they currently have ten students signed up to the platform, and three campaigns posted on their site. While this is still a relatively small number, Jossy expects the user-base to increase in the following months. He says:

By the end of the year, I hope we have at least 50 students signed up. But we believe everyone deserves a shot at medical education so we are open to more numbers.

Apart from existing users, Jossy is seeing more students reaching out to them about their intentions to use the platform. He says:

We believe that if we can help give them access to funding, we would be solving the emerging global shortage of doctors. […] Medifund hopes to build a network of health practitioners across the globe that would be advantageous to funders where they can get benefits in terms of free medical consultations, subsidized medical treatment and so on after they contribute to a medical students’ campaigns.

In addition to accepting pledges, Medifund will also have a section for funders and a loaning feature for students. The startup will be monetizing its platform by charging a five percent fee for every funded campaign.

Apart from Medifund, here are other crowdfunding sites in the Philippines such as ArtisteConnect, which supports musicians and filmmakers, and Spark Project, which supports innovative and social projects in the Philippines.

In the meantime, Medifund is working on generating awareness for the platform. The team will work on a nationwide campaign through media partners, universities and social media.

(Editing by Terence Lee)