mDex is a smartphone based, low cost, reusable, near-instant point of care diagnostic tool aimed at increasing access to sickle cell diagnostic services in low-resourced areas.This equips medical personnel with no hematology skills to diagnose the sickle cell disease (SCD) accurately to facilitate early diagnosis. Diagnostic tests for SCD are expensive and time-consuming and without “proof” of disease, patients may not be able to receive the care they need in a timely manner. mDex bridges the knowledge gap and the feedback loop between the time of testing and results.
University: Makerere University
Point-of-Care Early Diagnostic Test for Preeclampsia
The goal of this project is to develop a safe, inexpensive, and reliable self-diagnostic tool for the early detection of preeclampsia that can be accessible to pregnant women in low-resource settings, thereby reducing the detrimental health impacts of undiagnosed preeclampsia and eclampsia. The earliest indicators for developing preeclampsia are dramatically increased levels of biomarkers activin A and inhibin A in a woman’s urine. The self-diagnostic tool will be a urine strip created by adapting lateral flow assay technology to detect the levels of activin A and inhibin A in the urine of pregnant women. The test will inform the woman if she is developing preeclampsia and needs to seek medical care before her symptoms become severe and endanger the life of her and her unborn child.
Roach Protein
This project aims to produce of an alternative protein feed additive from farmed Periplaneta Americana cockroaches. This protein will be a direct substitute to the fishmeal protein that is currently used in poultry, piggery, and aquaculture feed formulation in Uganda and East Africa. Cockroach is an alternative insect protein source, which can sustainably be reared and produced by commercial feed producers and potentially at household level in Uganda. According to studies, Cockroach protein has been measured to be between 62%-65% protein on a dry matter basis which is comparable to silverfish at 65%. Having an alternative to the expensive fishmeal protein additive to feeds will directly increase the profitability of the poultry, piggery at households and commercially. Feed costs are the major costs within the poultry, piggery and aquaculture production chain.
HingiCredit
Financial institutions face a big challenge when offering agricultural financial credit. They have inefficient mechanisms to evaluate a farmer’s credit worthiness in relation to the sector-specific risks such as production, price and market risks. Most financial institutions do not have reliable credit risk analysis models to guide them in best evaluating farmers. Without a proper method or approach to credit risk analysis, farmers face the risk of being denied the credit they require because of the potentially inaccurate credit risk scores generated for them. Financial institutions also stand the risk of making losses when they give loans basing on the potentially inaccurate credit risk scores. HingiCredit will provide an automated credit risk analysis system that can be used to assess the credit-worthiness of farmers requesting loans from financial institutions. HingiCredit will reflect the risk factors that influence production and market and as a result will match farmers to financial institutions that are willing to provide the loans within the calculated risk.
Mama-OPE
The information obtained from listening to lung sounds using a microphone is limited. In order to reveal lung capacity and identify the different fluids that may be in a patient’s lungs, Mama-OPE is building upon software developed to analyze data and aid in the diagnosis of lung diseases. Health workers demonstrated the need to know the severity of diseases using the same device. In a statement about the product, a health worker at Mulago hospital said, “One of the most important things I first find out about the pneumonia patient is if they need oxygen supplementation or not and it would be great if I [could] get that using your same device.” Mama-OPE’s product will be able to detect oxygen saturation in the blood based on calorimetric principle.
PedalTap: Modifying the Water Tap System to Create a No Touch Cost Effective Solution in Developing Countries
This year, the PedalTap team is taking this Big Idea to another level. The innovative Tippy Tap was made to prevent the spread of infection at communal hand washing facilities in rural areas in Uganda. It is foot-operated, preventing the need for touch. The product is a free-standing, universally-fitting connection that can easily attach to any tap. It is operated by a foot pedal, which is made of a bicycle brake handle and system connected to a spring-loaded water cut off. It is very cheap, easy to produce, and simple to connect. It is also easy to use and water flow can be controlled. It is particularly good for use in communal and crowded spaces. The Tippy Tap builds on existing infrastructure, so there will no extra costs incurred.
MAMA-OPE
Mama Ope proposes to develop a cell phone based lung-monitoring device that could be used to radically improve the early diagnosis of pneumonia. The affordability and wide availability of cell phones make them an innovative platform for the development of simple medical diagnosis capabilities for use in the field. This is especially true in under-developed countries where skilled medical practitioners and their most sophisticated devices are often thin on the ground. The cell phone based prototype, coupled with specially developed cell phone applications, will make possible a detailed analysis and preliminary diagnosis of individual lung crackles through digitized audio obtained from the patient’s chest. To ensure that the lung sounds are of sufficient signal strength, the team intends to couple the cellphone to a modified passive stethoscope. In addition, the stethoscope will be embedded in a vest to ensure continuous monitoring. Since the recorded sound can be stored on the cell phone as a digital file, it can be sent later on for expert analysis through the cloud.
Sight 4 Everyone (e-Liiso)
Doctors and optometrists using e-liiso will be able to check patients’ abilities by just taking a flash picture from a phone camera to see color, test for long and short-sightedness, and also detect the presence of cataracts and other eye conditions. The app uses smartphones’ cameras, flashlights and display to check how the eyes react to stimuli, while doctors can also track the progress of individual patients and easily keep a record of their geo-location.
AgroMarketDay
The increasing ubiquity of mobiles in Uganda presents both opportunities and challenges, especially for critical sectors such as agriculture. In their various designs and capabilities, mobile phones can be found in the pockets of the wealthy and poor alike. Even in rural areas of Uganda, mobiles are growing in number and sophistication. The increase in mobile phone use should make developing a market for agricultural products easier, but in many districts farmers lack access to potential customers. AgroMarketDay, a mobile application, will share farmers’ information with potential customers so that they are be able to check out market days in the different districts and which products will be sold in the different markets.