… As CareCode Hackathon awards ₦10m to young African innovators
By Sola Ogundipe
Africa has been admonished to move beyond dependence on imported healthcare technologies and build solutions around its own health challenges.
Making the call in Lagos during the MedVerge 2.0 health technology gathering hosted by three health initiatives: HelpMum, Dobic Health, and SmartMRS, Dr. Abiodun Adereni, the convener, said the continent had the talent, technology and enormous healthcare challenges required to develop solutions that could improve access, efficiency and quality of care.
Addressing participants, Adereni, said the MedVerge initiative brings together the three healthcare ventures which he founded: HelpMum Africa, which uses technology and AI to tackle maternal and child health challenges; Dobic Health, which is expanding access to technology enabled clinical services; and SmartMRS, an AI powered electronic medical records platform designed to digitise healthcare operations and improve patient care.
“MedVerge is a platform for convergence. We have the talent, we have the problems that need solving, what we need is stronger collaboration and the confidence to develop solutions around our own realities,” Adereni said. He argued that African countries should not wait for solutions developed elsewhere before addressing their healthcare challenges.
“MedVerge was created to bring healthcare and technology professionals together, expose young African professionals to emerging technologies and demonstrate how locally developed solutions could address local health problems,” he said
Noting that the convergence of the three platforms was deliberate, he identified sustainability as one of the biggest challenges facing health innovation in Africa.
“We don’t collaborate enough; stronger collaboration is needed among governments, technology companies, healthcare providers, development organisations and innovators.” he said.
He urged the health sector to learn from the tech and financial services sectors for integration of platforms and ecosystems, even as he called for successful innovations to be transferred to the government and integrated into public health programmes.
“If an innovation has demonstrated value, the government should be able to adopt it, scale it and sustain it as a public health asset,” he said.
Such an approach, he argued, would allow innovations developed by African organisations to reach
larger populations instead of remaining small pilot projects.
Speaking during a fireside session titled “The Days Ahead Are Tough,” moderated by Deborah Oguike, Adereni reflected on his decade of building businesses at the intersection of healthcare, technology and infrastructure.
He said expanding health insurance coverage would provide the financial foundation needed to drive innovation and improve access to quality healthcare. He also disclosed his ambition to acquire a licensed Health Maintenance Organisation and use it to expand Dobic Health’s modern healthcare facilities across Africa.
“Health insurance is the factor that will help scale healthcare innovations. I don’t see AI replacing doctors, but I see it making the work of clinicians faster and more efficient in diagnosis,” he said.
Adereni said Nigeria should aim to become a producer and exporter of health technology rather than remain largely a consumer of solutions developed outside the continent.
“Nigeria should not simply be a market for health technology developed elsewhere. We should be a place where health technology is developed, tested, improved and scaled,” he said.
He argued that Nigeria needed policies that encourage technology adoption, sustainable financing, better infrastructure and stronger partnerships between government and innovators.
The broader message from MedVerge was that Africa’s healthcare future cannot be built entirely by Importing solutions. It has to be built from within.
CareCode Hackathon awards ₦10m to young innovators
In a related development. HelpMum Africa has awarded ₦10 million to three young teams whose innovations emerged from its CareCode Hackathon, an initiative aimed at promoting technology driven solutions to healthcare challenges in Nigeria and across Africa.
The hackathon brought together young innovators to develop and pitch products and ideas focused on the future of healthcare. Five teams – HerPride, Lavender Care, ChopBeta, Bumply and MamaConnect, made it to the final stage of the competition.
At the end of the competition, Lavender Care emerged as the top beneficiary, receiving ₦5 million, ChopBeta won ₦3 million and Bumply received ₦2 million. The awards formed part of broader efforts by HelpMum Africa and its partners to encourage young people to apply technology and innovation to some of the continent’s most pressing healthcare challenges.
The initiative was highlighted alongside a second panel session, “AI’s Next Chapter in Healthcare,” which brought together leading health technology founders to examine the growing role of artificial intelligence in healthcare and its potential to reshape how health services are delivered.
HelpMum Africa, Dobic Health and SmartMRS reaffirmed their commitment to supporting healthcare innovation, entrepreneurship and technology driven solutions across Nigeria and the continent.
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