Makerere wins international technology award

Jan 13, 2014

MAKERERE University has beaten stiff competition from six international universities to emerge winners of last year’s higher education solutions network contest.

By John Agaba

MAKERERE University has beaten stiff competition from six international universities to emerge winners of last year’s higher education solutions network (HESN) contest.

The international technology innovations contest, launched in 2012 and supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), saw a group of young university innovators from seven Universities worldwide lock horns for the award.

There was the University of California, Barkley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University, The College of William and Mary’s AidData Centre for Development Policy, Texas A&M University and Michigan State University.

Makerere was the only African University selected to participate in the innovations contest.

Makerere won after showcasing a malaria testing kit, named Matibabu, which digitally diagnoses malaria without having to prick the patient to take their blood sample.

This was during the TechCon conference at the end of last year in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.

Initially, Makerere submitted two entries for the competition but only Matibabu made it to the final round.

The other innovation was Water4lyf, a mobile-based water testing kit that assesses water quality, maps visualization of clean and safe water and also assesses water infrastructure after disasters.

The Matibabu application qualified for round two of the competition, facing competition from The College of William and Mary’s AidData Centre for Development Policy, University of California, Berkeley, and Duke University, also shortlisted after round one.

Round two involved a pitching contest with an international panel of judges grilling the final four teams after which Makerere University emerged winners.

Makerere was declared the winner, followed by the College of William and Mary’s AidData Centre for Development Policy, the University of California, Berkeley, and then Duke University.

The team behind the winning Matibabu innovation comprised of Brian Gitta, Josiah Kavuma and Joseph Businge, all second year students from the College of Computing and Information Sciences, Simon Lubambo and Alvin Kabwama from the College of Engineering, Design, Art, and Technology.

Gitta said they looked at inventing Matibabu because “Malaria is still the leading cause of death in Africa. And a big number of these are children. So, if we could create an application that could help diagnose malaria easily without having to prick the patient, it would be something,”

How the device works

The Matibabu (Swahili word for medical Centre), application uses a custom hardware, Matiscope, containing red light sensors to detect the presence of malaria parasites in the body before relaying the result on a Windows-powered smartphone.

You place your finger in the custom device that shines red light onto the finger and later sends the results to the phone.

“When someone has malaria, the malaria plasmodium affects the composition of their red blood cells and they change shape and color. So, the red light reflects this shape and color and sends the results to one’s phone,” explained Gitta. “In about a minute you are able to get your results.”

Prof William Bazeyo, The Dean Makerere University School of Public Health and Project Chief said: “This is a big step for the University. And we are not going to stop here. We have beaten what you can call the best Universities in the world and we are proud of it.”

For their innovation, Gitta and team also won $1500 (about sh3.7m).

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});