The Take-off subsidy was a fundamental step in our journey once it funded our main Pilot Study: the Pilot Study in Malawi.

In early 2020, the team designed the study together with Job Calis, a Paediatric intensivist from AMC, and set its goals, having the prototype developed in a collaboration between Bart Bierling, Tijs Versteegde and Martin Macharia.

The subsidy allowed GOAL 3 to test this prototype on the field, in Blantyre, which later allowed the team to make substantial progress on the interface and software.

Approximately four years ago, our founder Bart Bierling laid the foundation for GOAL 3 with his design of a tablet-based patient monitoring for low and middle-income countries during his master of Industrial Design at the TU/e.

We felt a big appreciation for this mission and our plans to achieve this mission by the jury, the TU/e, and everyone involved by winning 2 awards at the TU/e contest in 2020!

Our talented Bart Bierling and Jelle Schuitemaker were selected for the MT/Sprout 25 under 25, making them two of the most promising entrepreneurs under 25 years old of 2020.

Their youthfulness and fierceness convinced the public and they left a final note of encouragement:

“What's stopping you from just starting with your idea? Validate your assumptions, speak to stakeholders, pitch your idea at events, enter competitions and find co-founders who believe in your idea and are complementary to your skills, talents and character.”

In October 2020, GOAL 3 applied to the first edition of the everis Awards Nederland.

We passed until the final stage and we won the everis Award Nederland! Awarded with €10.000 and three months of mentoring from the everis Netherlands team, the team could not be happier for this amazing achievement.

Financially speaking it allows us to move forward with our IMPALA monitoring system, emotionally speaking it gives us the fuel to keep fighting.

In order to share our mission, vision and goals with the world, GOAL 3 hosted a virtual event.

GOALies Niek Versteegde, Bart Bierling, Jelle Schuitemaker en Kevin Gerrits presented different aspects of our company while Job Calis (Amsterdam UMC), Willem Mees van der Bijl (IDE Group) and Chris Koehler (FFUND) joined the event with stories from the field.

Presented by Pascal Murasira and located at the beautiful Jheronimus Academy of Data Science, it was a very successful official launch event to put our name on the map.

After COVID-19 delayed the team’s plans of Bart going to Malawi in 2020, it was time for him to go from January to April 2021.

In order to get a proper sample, our goal was to get 100 participants. Once again, COVID-19 interfered with our pilot study: people were very afraid to go to the hospital, they would only go if it was actually needed. This led to 30 to 40 participants in the first three months. The study therefore extended for another month. A blessing, because the plan was quite ambitious to begin with. We ended up with 50 participants.

GOAL 3 has established a research consortium to develop the IMPALA monitoring system with some of the biggest players in the field in both Europe and Malawi.

Together, we formed project IMPALA and applied for the EDCTP grant, which is supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, and we succeeded. Not only does it provide a significant part of the funding needed for developing the IMPALA, but it also gives us access to the best people and research units active in this field. 

Our very own Jelle Schuitemaker has won the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards Netherlands, sharing our GOAL 3 mission!


The spark in his eyes has convinced the jury of the Entrepreneurs'​ Organization NL that he was the well-deserved winner as the jury was “very impressed by his personality, as well as by the steps he has already taken with his company.”

Together with Symbid, GOAL 3 developed a crowdfunding campaign that went far and beyond what the team had ever imagined.

We are proud to announce that the campaign gathered €657.100 over-funding for 263%! It is truly inspiring to see how many people support, and believe in our mission.

This investment is not only about financing, it is the signal that we have the right people by our side, that we are all one and that we all believe it is time for a change.

In the first week of June, the IMPALA Project Consortium had its initial kick-off meeting and it has officially started.

Together with our partners, we will go through stages of research, development, and implementation of the IMPALA monitoring system and supporting applications.

The GOAL 3 team is eager to work together with, and learn from, the experts in the field, supporting the project. For us, this is a huge step towards a system that will reduce child mortality in low and middle-income countries.

We were awarded an Achmea Foundation grant, the starting point for project Kambatia (Swahili for “Embrace”). With a focus on the first steps towards the commercialization of the IMPALA monitoring system.

The first step is an in-depth market exploration in Kenya, Malawi, Ghana and Rwanda. Then, a local establishment for creating a local support organization, handling logistics and importation, customer lead generation and ultimately sales and implementation. And last but not least: commercialize and implement our monitoring systems to our first customers.