Kenyan e-health platform wins regional contest

A digital platform connecting patients to caregivers has received IBM support to expand its offering across Kenya.

By JAMES KARIUKI
More by this Author

Summary

• The app, powered and secured by IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Virtual Servers and Hyper Protect DBaas with MongoDB, awed judges for its simple interface that Kenyans can use to interact with medics and receive a diagnosis report from the comfort of their homes.
• IBM country general manager- East Africa, Caroline Mukiira said they will assist Mbali Health developers to fine tune their product ahead of a planned commercial deployment in the region. The app also received Sh557,650 in cash from the tech giant.

This is after the platform, Mbali Health, emerged as the Middle East and Africa champion in a Call for Code Global Challenge organised by global IT giant IBM where judges described Mbali Health as a viable post-Covid solution that ensures patients get care via a contactless mode.

The app, powered and secured by IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Virtual Servers and Hyper Protect DBaas with MongoDB, awed judges for its simple interface that Kenyans can use to interact with medics and receive a diagnosis report from the comfort of their homes.

IBM country general manager- East Africa, Caroline Mukiira said they will assist Mbali Health developers to fine tune their product ahead of a planned commercial deployment in the region. The app also received Sh557,650 in cash from the tech giant.

“At IBM, we apply data, knowledge, computing power and insights to solve difficult problems and Mbali Health App tackles the pressing issue(Covid-19) while using the power of Cloud, digital, Artificial Intellegence, blockchain and Internet of Things,” she said.

Mbali Health will see inclusion of voice and images’ transmission thereby enabling medics to effectively respond to patients’ needs.

Now in its third year, the 2020 Call for Code challenge brought together developers, start-ups and enterprise developers whose task was to create solutions that address the world's problems aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change.

The Call for Code global competition has generated 15,000 solutions built using open source-powered products and technologies, including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, data from The Weather Company and APIs from ecosystem partners like HERE Technologies and IntelePeer.

The five-year global initiative is worth Sh3.34 billion and was created by David Clark Cause with founding partner IBM and UN human rights unit.

Call for Code global winning solutions are further developed, incubated, and deployed as sustainable open source projects to ensure they can drive positive change.