The Health meets Tech innovation challenge ran between the 9th and 10th of June. The hackathon was organized by iHub andEpiAfric, with support from Facebook, and took place at iHub premises. The teams were challenged to come up with innovative solutions to tackle pressing health challenges across East Africa.
The competition was undertaken by 22 teams. They were tasked to develop solutions across 5 main thematic areas.
They are;
— Universal Health Coverage
– Mapping SOlutions
– Nutrition Solutions
– Maternal health and newborn solutions
– Warning systems
Three judges, Frank Tamre, Simon Ndoria and Selam Emiru presided over the event.
The winning team built an AI-Stick designed to help the visually impaired.
The runners-up, Chanjo Plus; developed a system that avails vaccine information to mothers.
Iris innovations developed an AI chatbot to promote mental health in the workplace.
Nutritribe came in fourth with a conversational platform for nutritionists/dieticians and users to engage in conversation on good nutrition
Nutritech is a messaging system built with the aim of creating awareness on non-communicable diseases affecting the population and by region.
The winning team, AI-Stick, walked home with $1000, a slot for incubation at iHub, as well as coaches to guide them along their journey to improve their product, business model, and financial model.
The second runners-up, Iris Innovations has also been pre-selected to apply for the 2018 Amref Innovate for Life incubation program that starting soon.