The Child Welfare and Nutritution Monitoring App developed by Kagiso Ndlovu, Badisa Mosesane and Kesego Tumisang was chosen as the winner of the P50,000 Annual Orange Social Venture Prize at the new Orange Botswana head office today.
The mobile application will enable clinicians to access specific child growth charts quickly and easily through the use of mobile device such as tablets and smartphones. This will be possible by the use of algorithms run by the system to diagnose whether the child is malnourished has stunt growth or any other child related weakness.
It will also be accessible in the rural areas where there is limited internet connectivity, allowing clinical professionals to give every child the best care possible.
The second and third positions were won by Tradesman App and Thebe Trunk who walked away with prizes money worth P30,000 and P20,000 respectively. The winners will compete for a Grand Prize with other Orange participating countries at AfricaCom event, in Cape Town in November.
“Our preliminary pilot results show that the system is feasible and offers a convenient data collection and processing tool for infant growth and development monitoring in Botswana. For this reason, we have named the application MPEPU, a Setswana name referring to the act of taking care. We hope that through the app, we will be able to enhance the Government’s efforts of centralizing child welfare data collection,” said Badisa Mosesane.
The Orange Social Venture Prize is an Orange Group initiative that seeks to boost and encourage start-ups in Africa to develop innovative projects that promote and enhance development in the region. This year, Botswana received a total of 46 submissions from local entrepreneurs and innovators in areas as diverse as healthcare, e-commerce, education, agriculture and energy.
“Our interest is to deliberately facilitate and encourage innovative thinking and solution driven approaches in tackling challenges linked to socio economic development including but not limited to issues of healthcare for a widely scattered population country like Botswana, where there is a shortage of doctors and inadequate dissemination of health information,” said Dr Patrick Benon, Chief Executive Officer of Orange Botswana.
He said, “Since inception in 2011, the Orange Social Venture Prize has been annually rewarding innovative start-ups that are passionate about changing or improving lives through technology with special emphasis on healthcare, mobile payments, education, agriculture and commerce.”
