The Africa Young Innovators for Health Award is a flagship programme launched by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) and Speak Up Africa to recognize and reward innovative projects by young African entrepreneurs in the health sector. It is supported by AMREF Health Africa, BroadReach, Ecobank Academy, the Galien Foundation, IntraHealth International, Microsoft 4 Afrika, RBM Partnership to End Malaria, Social Change Factory, Africa.com and Scidev.net.
IFPMA and Speak Up Africa launched this award to provide an opportunity for young entrepreneurs in the health sector to develop innovative health projects. Indeed, Africa has almost a quarter of the world’s disease burden, but only 3% of the world’s health workforce and the continent is the youngest on the planet with 22% of its working age population owning a business. The first edition of the award, launched in December 2021, highlighted innovative solutions aimed at supporting health professionals who are leading the way in delivering care and promoting health. Applications were judged based on the project’s innovation, development potential and measurable and sustainable impact in supporting healthcare professionals.
300 applications were received, 60 were selected, 15 shorlisted and 3 winners won the prize in September 2021:
Founded by Dr Tankou, Global Innovation and Creative Space (GIC Space), through its flagship product GICMED, aims to reduce breast and cervical cancer mortality rates in disadvantaged communities in Africa and in rural areas that generally lack access to cancer care services. GICMED includes smartphone-based digital microscopy and colposcopy systems, as well as a telemedicine platform to enable women living in the most remote areas to be screened and diagnosed for these cancers on site by specialist doctors.
Daktari Online, a product of Daktari Media Africa, is an online medical resource platform that allows the health professional community to interact, educate themselves, publish research articles, attend training and earn Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points. Founded by John Mwangi, a computer scientist, Daktari Online currently supports the learning objectives of over 9,000 Kenyan health professionals for assessment and renewal of their licenses, providing relevant content created by experts in an easy-to-access format and helping health care providers collect evidence of their learning.
Through its Mediverse product, Healthbotics uses artificial intelligence to power electronic medical record systems that allow healthcare professionals to enter and retrieve patient records using voice recognition, with or without internet access, on any device. Mediverse provides doctors with a virtual digital assistant that captures and records critical clinical data, prescriptions, treatment analyses and prognostic assessment while providing patient care.