Join us on the 9th-10th June 2018 as multi-disciplinary teams compete to develop innovative health solutions to tackle health challenges across East Africa.

In the past, there have been several innovative health solutions developed in previous health innovation challenges locally. So, hackathons are not necessarily a new thing, but despite health solutions being developed every year, we are still a long way out from solving several health issues affecting Kenya. This is why we still need to keep innovating to increase the odds of tackling the health challenges we face in Kenya. Lets take a quick look into past events.

In 2011 we saw the development of solutions to help with easy access of health facilities and doctors like med Africa, one of the top winners of the pivot25 competition. In 2012-2013 there was growth of solutions in health to manage health facilities data and patient records, Organisations like the Redcross and other NGO’s held RHOK (Random Hacks of Kindness) hackathons to develop solutions for disaster relief and early warning systems. Ventures Africa released a list in 2014 of 9 apps shaping healthcare in Africa (mPedigree, hello doctor, momconnect etc). In 2015 DukeSead held a health hackathon to tackle Non Communicable diseases challenge (diabetes, hypertension etc), in 2016 Vilgro through its #Okoamama Hack4Life challenge encouraged innovators to develop solutions to tackle maternal health challenges. Amref and Nailab also supported the winners of innovate for life challenge by incubating them for 3 months to improve their solutions. Local companies like Seven Seas Technologies are also leading effort through advancing healthcare delivery models in developing equipment and healthcare management software. In the universities, at the Fablab Nairobi engineers have developed INCUCOT – an affordable infant incubator. Companies like MERCK have also taken note of these and are locally supporting innovators through health accelerator models. These are just a few examples of innovative health solutions.

This year, the Health meets Tech innovation challenge welcomes the development of solutions from the following thematic areas:

1. Theme1: Universal Health Coverage: Develop solutions to make it easy for clients to subscribe and pay for health services via mobile money.
2. Theme 2: Develop Mapping Solutions:Mapping of doctors, nurses, medical officers, hospitals, dispensaries, pharmacies, ambulances, paramedics, clinical officers, (public vs private) etc. mapping of free health services, health insurance products etc.
3. Theme 3:Develop solutions to tackle the problem of Nutrition: How do we get people aware of proper nutrition needs to reduce lifestyle and Non Communicable Diseases (messaging solutions to create awareness)/education on better nutrition.
4. Theme 4: Develop solutions to tackle Maternal Health/newborn/child health: Areas of consideration:Danger signs (how do you tell if the baby is unwell?),Newborn health,prenatal/birth support/postnatal/postpartum;Mother-child transmission;Vaccines (level of care/confidence – availability, record keeping, timing for when needed etc) (record keeping- which vaccine is for what etc.
5. Theme 5: Develop solutions for warning systems: Alerts forEpidemics (Cholera, Typhoid), weather warnings (floods/drought);Adolescent health ;Mental health and early detection of terminal illnesses like HIV,TB, Malaria etc.

We are inviting individuals, teams and companies in the tech community both locally (to Nairobi) and on a global scale to take part. Ideal teams should be made up with a mix of developers, designers and medical practitioners (either doctors, nurses, medical officers).

iHub and Epic Africa will support the winning team through providing them with 100,000 Kenya Shilling cash prize (tax inclusive), incubation support and enabling environment to pilot their solutions.

If you are interested to participate in this innovation challenge, we invite you to sign up hereto attend the two-day event to develop solutions to advance the improvement of healthcare in Kenya. This innovation challenge is open to all – people in the healthcare industry (doctors, nurses, medical workers, pharmacists etc) as well as innovators and techies.

The Health meets Tech innovation challenge is organized by iHub andEpiAfric, with support from Facebook.

The Challenge will take place on 9th – 10th of June from 9.00 am at the iHub, Senteu Plaza, 6th Floor.