The fourth season of the Game of Learners (GOL) competition was won by Team Ruby, comprising four university students who created a groundbreaking innovation called ‘Jambo Care.’ This solution translates the local dialect into English or Kiswahili, facilitating remote diagnosis of patients’ symptoms by doctors. The GOL competition, which involved over 80 students from 11 African nations, focused on developing technological solutions to address healthcare challenges in Africa. The challenge attracted 16 teams from various universities in Africa, with an equal representation of men and women.
In a bid to enhance accessibility to primary healthcare services, the Microsoft African Development Centre (ADC) joined forces with Population Services International (PSI) and AMREF Health Africa to conduct a five-week hackathon. The hackathon aimed to develop technology solutions that could improve access to primary healthcare services for people in Africa. The continent’s healthcare systems encounter numerous obstacles, such as inadequate healthcare infrastructure, a shortage of healthcare professionals, low access to crucial medication, poor health literacy, and inadequate health-seeking behaviour, making it difficult to receive quality care. The use of affordable digital technology presents an opportunity to overcome these challenges.
Speaking about their innovation, Lucy Alphonce, the Team Ruby captain, said: “Our translator aims to bridge the communication gap whereby the healthcare provider and the recipient don’t have a common language of communication. This will ensure effective healthcare delivery.”
This season of the GOL sought to answer the question of how advances in digital technology can improve consumers’ access to health information, products, and services. Throughout the season, the three partners provided participants with tailored training on health system challenges, digital health development principles, and how to use insights to advance user-centred designs. Other topics addressed included customer acquisition for digital health solutions and health financing. In five groups, participants had five weeks to develop solutions, including the most recent advancements in digital health technology, such as Artificial Intelligence, Telemedicine, and Chatbot solutions.
Speaking at the Season Finale, Ruth Ferland, the Regional Head of Student & Community Engagements at Microsoft ADC, said: “As part of this year’s competition, we challenged participants to delve into the healthcare sector, identify a unique challenge, and design a tech-based solution. Through the competition, we can obtain what we hope will be a creative solution to one of our long-standing healthcare challenges and assist them in learning more about technology and how to use it for good.”
As part of the next steps, PSI will provide some students with internship opportunities to progress their knowledge in digital health. At the same time, AMREF Health will offer 3-months of technical support to the best two teams to advance their innovations. On her part, Ferland challenged the students aiming to take their projects to the next level to resubmit them in the Microsoft Imagine Cup, the premier global student technology competition that offers students the opportunity to unleash their passion and purpose to develop inspiring leading-edge technology solutions in one of four competition categories—Earth, Education, Health, and Lifestyle.
Speaking at the event, Wycliffe Waweru, PSI’s Deputy Director of Digital Health & Monitoring, said: “As PSI, we are looking at two opportunities to advance these innovations by the students. First, we are looking for an opportunity with innovation hubs that can host some of the solutions that the young people have developed and see if they can be brought to market. For individuals interested in pursuing a career in digital health, we shall offer internships for them to come and work with our teams for practical and hands-on interaction with other digital health solutions.”
On her part, Kitawa Wemo, the Innovations Lead at AMREF Health, said: “For us, our digital and data strategy is focused on supporting young people that are building digital technologies for health. As a result, we are thrilled to have collaborated with Microsoft ADC and PSI on this noble initiative, which is part of efforts to integrate global health and digital skills. By leveraging digital technologies, we can improve data management, promote telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, provide health education, and promote global collaboration and knowledge-sharing.”