Mass General Brigham’s Kraft Center names Oben Health winner of the 2026 Kraft Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Community Health
Oben Health receives $100,000 national prize; Malama Health selected for Kraft Impact Acceleration Award
Today, the Kraft Center for Community Health at Mass General Brigham announced that Oben Health has been selected as the winner of the Kraft Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Community Health, a national award recognizing organizations and innovators driving measurable improvements in community health through scalable, real-world solutions. Oben Health was selected for the $100,000 prize for its technology-enabled model to bring preventive cardiovascular care into trusted community settings.
Oben Health is an AI-enabled platform working to reduce cardiovascular disparities, hypertension, and heart disease in underserved communities. By transforming neighborhood barbershops and beauty salons into trusted health screening hubs, Oben brings preventive care directly into the community and creates a direct pathway from screening to diagnosis and treatment. Its technology-enabled model leverages AI to address persistent gaps in access while creating a scalable approach that can be adapted across populations, settings and health conditions.
“This year’s applicants brought forward creative, practical solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in community health,” said Elsie Taveras, MD, MPH, chief community health and health equity officer at Mass General Brigham and executive director of the Kraft Center for Community Health. “Oben Health stood out for its ability to bridge trusted community spaces and healthcare, creating new opportunities for cardiovascular screening, prevention and follow-up care in underserved communities. Their approach reflects the kind of evidence-based, scalable innovation that can help advance community health and improve outcomes for people who have historically faced barriers to care.”
“Improving community health requires meeting people where they are and investing in ideas that can make a real difference in their lives,” said Robert Kraft, chairman and CEO of the Kraft Group. “Oben Health reflects exactly the kind of innovation we hoped to recognize through the Kraft Prize. We are proud to support their work and to help accelerate solutions that can strengthen communities here in Boston and across the country.”
The Kraft Center also announced that Malama Health was selected as the winner of the inaugural Kraft Impact Acceleration Award. The digital maternal health mobile app combines remote monitoring, care navigation, and doula support to improve maternal health outcomes and expand access to care. Recognizing the organization's rapid growth and potential for impact, the $50,000 award, along with additional support from Mass General Brigham Innovation, will help Malama expand its platform and presence in the Northeast.
In addition to the prizes, Oben Health and Malama Health will have an opportunity to present at the Mass General Brigham World Medical Innovation Forum (WMIF), taking place in Boston on September 22-23, 2026. The WMIF brings together more than 2,000 global leaders from across industries to collaborate on transformative health solutions.
The winners will receive tailored support from the Mass General Brigham Innovator Growth Division (IGD), including connections to relevant resources and invitations to meetings, trainings and other programs to help accelerate and scale their work.
“Healthcare should not be limited by the walls of a clinic. At Oben Health, we are building the technology and infrastructure to bring evidence-based care into the trusted community spaces where people already spend their time. The Kraft Prize will help us expand this model, reach more medically underserved communities, and demonstrate what is possible when technology, clinical care, and community trust work together,” said Peter Njongwe, founder and CEO of Oben Health.
“This recognition belongs to every doula and parent on our team who shows up for pregnant and postpartum women insured by Medicaid every single day, most importantly, when the system doesn’t. We built Malama because too many women are left to navigate pregnancy alone. This award confirms that community-rooted, doula-led care isn’t just compassionate. It is effective, and it’s scalable,” said Mika Eddy, CEO of Malama Health.
Launched in 2025, the Kraft Prize is centered on priority areas including cancer, cardiometabolic disease, maternal health, and substance use disorder. Applicants are asked to demonstrate a clear and measurable impact on community health in at least one priority area and show community engagement in the development and implementation of their company, program or innovation.
Last year’s inaugural Kraft Prize winner was ThriveLink, a telephonic AI enrollment solution that enables families to verbally complete and submit applications for safety-net programs such as health insurance, food assistance and utility support.
To learn more about the 2026 Kraft Prize, visit massgeneralbrigham.org/kraftprize.
Media contact
McKenzie Ridings
Senior Program Manager, External Communications
mridings@mgb.org | 617-224-8999
About the Kraft Center for Community Health
The Kraft Center for Community Health at Mass General Brigham was established with the mission to expand access to high-quality, cost-effective healthcare for medically underserved patients and communities. Founded in 2011 through a generous donation by Robert Kraft, the Center aims to catalyze innovative solutions to real world community health problems, execute solutions locally, and make them scalable and ready to spread nationally to improve health outcomes for disadvantaged populations nationally. The Kraft Center is an innovation leader across the Mass General Brigham system, specializing in programmatic design and implementation to improve community health. For more information, please visit kraftcommunityhealth.org.
About Mass General Brigham
Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org.