This workshop provides an opportunity to better understand the breadth and depth of sustainable development related activities being carried out by IST-Africa Institute (WSIS Prizes 2018 Champion – International and Regional Cooperation) in partnership with Ministries and National Councils responsible for Innovation, Science and Technology in 17 African Member States.
One such sustainable development related activity from IST-Africa is mHealth4Afrika. Co-funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020, mHealth4Afrika is focused on supporting Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) by strengthening the quality of primary healthcare delivery in resource constrained clinic environments.
This participatory Workshop will share insights and lessons learnt from the collaborative open innovation process applied to the co-design of a modular mHealth platform supporting programs based on national health policy priorities and leverage the adoption of EMR and EHR features and medical sensors, analytical and visualisation tools to support interpretation and monitoring of patient results and automatic generation of monthly program indicators to save time and increase accuracy. The comparative findings to date from the baseline study, alpha and beta evaluations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa will be shared. A demonstration of the mHealth4Afrika application will be provided and insight will be sought into adaptation of content and feature sets required for other resource constrained environments.
About IST-Africa
IST-Africa (IST-Africa.org) is a strategic collaboration with Ministries & National Councils responsible for Innovation, Science and Technology research, policy, implementation and adoption in 17 African Member States. Founded in 2002, and open to participation by all African Member States, IST-Africa is supported by the European Commission and African Union Commission and co-funded under the European Framework Programme since 2005.
Open to participation by all African Member States, the IST-Africa Institute focuses on: strengthening policy and strategy capacity at ministry and regional level; fostering a multi-stakeholder, cross-border research culture amongst African universities by helping secure research funding to address local societal challenges; raising awareness of African research and innovation landscape, policy, infrastructure, capacity and collaboration opportunities through publications and IST-Africa Week (2006 – Present); and support entrepreneurship by promoting institutionalization of Innovation Spaces hosted by public and education and research institutions. IST-Africa has a proven track record of monitoring, mapping, and contributing to Research and Innovation policy and implementation priorities.
IST-Africa played a key role in helping African institutions secure over €165 million in European Research and Innovation grants; €100 million under FP7, (2007 - 2013) and over €65 million to date (2014 – 2017) under Horizon 2020. IST-Africa also provided the evidence to secure dedicated funding of c.€26 million for Calls leveraging technology to address African societal challenges under Horizon 2020 (ICT-39-2015/2017).
About mHealth4Afrika
Supported by the European Commission, mHealth4Afrika (www.mHealth4Afrika.org) is validating the co-design of a modular state-of-the-art mHealth platform focused on strengthening primary healthcare delivery in resource constrained environments. mHealth4Afrika is being co-designed and field tested in consultation with Ministries of Health, local universities, District Health Offices and nurses in rural and deep rural clinics in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa. mHealth4Afrika programs are based on national health policy priorities and leverage the adoption of EMR and EHR features and medical sensors, analytical and visualisation tools to support interpretation and monitoring of patient results and automatic generation of monthly program indicators to save time and increase accuracy. It is designed to be adapted for use in any resource constrained environment.