The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa hosted its first virtual ‘hackathon’ bringing together 100 leading innovators from across sub-Saharan Africa in a bid to pioneer creative local solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic and address critical gaps in the regional response.
Proposed solution uses a mobile platform that incorporates screening at the community level, mass testing and validation as well as the mapping of risk levels in different areas in real time for stakeholders including community health workers to then tailor their responses accordingly.
“The hackathon was a really incredible experience,” said William Wasswa, a Ugandan biomedical engineer whose team was among the top three for their proposed x-ray based self-screening platform, which aims to counter a shortage of testing kits in many African countries. “WHO must be credited for bringing so many different African innovators together,” he added.
WHO plans to continue developing WHO’s new hackathon model in the coming weeks. Such practical solutions are a game-changing African countries can set an example in terms of innovation and solutions that are tailored to limited resource settings.