An innovation by four university students that translates the local dialect into English or Kiswahili to make it easier for doctors to diagnose patients’ symptoms remotely has emerged as the overall winner of the fourth season of the Game of Learners (GOL) competition. The solution, dubbed ‘Jambo Care,’ was developed by Team Ruby, which beat 16 other teams from universities across Africa to win the season on Friday. This season’s challenge aimed to develop technological solutions for Africa’s health challenges and featured more than 80 students from 11 African countries, with an equal balance of men and women.
This season, the Microsoft African Development Centre (ADC) partnered with Population Services International (PSI) and AMREF Health Africa in a five-week hackathon to design and build technology solutions that make primary healthcare more accessible to people. This was informed by the fact that African healthcare systems face several challenges, including inadequate health infrastructure, a shortage of healthcare personnel, limited access to essential medicines, low health literacy, and poor health-seeking behaviour. This makes it difficult for individuals and communities to receive high-quality care. Increasing access to affordable digital technology provides an opportunity to address these challenges.
Jambo Care aims to bridge the communication gap whereby the healthcare provider and the recipient don’t have a common language of communication. This will ensure effective healthcare delivery. As part of the next steps, PSI will provide some students with internship opportunities to progress their knowledge in digital health. At the same time, AMREF Health will offer 3-months of technical support to the best two teams to advance their innovations.
Speaking at the Season Finale, Ruth Ferland, the Regional Head of Student & Community Engagements at Microsoft ADC, said: “As part of this year’s competition, we challenged participants to delve into the healthcare sector, identify a unique challenge, and design a tech-based solution. Through the competition, we can obtain what we hope will be a creative solution to one of our long-standing healthcare challenges and assist them in learning more about technology and how to use it for good.”
Microsoft Africa Development Center (ADC) is launching the 3rd season of its sponsored Game of Learners (GOL) student hackathon competition. The GOL initiative aims to improve digital and coding abilities among African university students. The Microsoft student hackathon participants will seek to find solutions that address the effects of climate change on the continent.
This year the 5-week hackathon’s objective is to propose solutions that reduce or reverse gas emissions and footprints, based on the theme Climate Change & Sustainability. Season 3 has a total of 8 teams made up of 5 participants from across East Africa participating. A Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador will lead each team and they will get mentorship and training from Microsoft.
The program’s main objective is to establish a fun, hands-on learning experience for students. It provides a virtual environment where students learn new technologies and build impactful solutions for their community. Overall, the program provides a platform for Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors to hone their leadership skills as Team Captains while leading and building impactful solutions with the learners.
The best project will collaborate with the Green Belt Movement to advance the winning solution. Weekly episodes of the GOL Show will be available online as the teams document their progress. Other winning categories are; people’s choice (project with most votes on DevPost), Best Media Presence (best video content) and Learners (highest team average points on Microsoft Learn).
”Part of our mission in ADC is solving Africa’s problems with Microsoft technology,” said ADC Managing Director Jack Ngare while making the announcement. “Africa is not immune to climate change challenges, and this is one of the issues we’d like to see tackled using Microsoft technology while also upskilling and enabling higher education tech enthusiasts in the region.”
Green Belt Movement’s Paul Thiong’o welcomed this year’s theme on climate change, noting that it’s in line with the organization’s vision to have a values-driven society of people who consciously work for continued improvement of their livelihoods and a greener, cleaner world.
“At the Green Belt Movement, we believe in empowering communities to take action against climate change, whose effects are already being felt across Africa. Our experience shows that when the communities understand the linkage between their actions, environment, and their livelihood situations, they are more likely to muster their energies and act for change. As a result, we are delighted to be a part of this noble initiative, which will see our young people contribute positively to ongoing efforts to address climate change challenges.”
“The GOL engages directly with students regardless of the higher education institution they come from. Born virtual, GOL is a program without borders. All GOL activities are supported by volunteers from Microsoft and partners as coaches, mentors, judges, speakers, and trainers,” Ngare explains, adding: “GOL is formed like a sports league, starting with a season, and followed by off-season clinics and exhibitions.”
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After weeks of gruelling teamwork, Microsoft announces team Bloom as winners of the second season of its Africa Development Center (ADC) Game of Learners Virtual Hackathon. Team kaizen came in second place and Team Tulearn came in third to complete the winning three teams.
Season 2 of the Microsoft ADC Game of Learners virtual hackathon competition involved 60 undergraduate students from Nigeria and Kenya. With the teams taking on the challenge of solving the education accessibility problems in Africa using technology. The 12 teams had a diversity and gender balance of 30 females and males.
Team Bloom led by Bethany Jepchumba from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, designed the winning solution Bloom-Learn.
The solution features a digital platform with capabilities to link students and teachers across Africa. Teachers are able to upload classes, create one-on-one sessions with students, as well as communicate with students on each course via a chat forum. Students can use a booking session to connect with teachers. Bloom-Learn is built with Microsoft’s Azure App Service, Power platform and Microsoft 365.
The other Team Bloom members include Joy Kathure (Dedan Kimathi University, Kenya), Festus Idowu (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria), Fortune Adekogbe (University of Lagos, Nigeria) and Afandi Indiatsi (Strathmore University, Kenya).
Jack Ngare, Microsoft ADC Kenya Managing Director, notes that Microsoft is committed to supporting these young innovators to develop some of their ideas into viable solutions.
Team Bloom gets the winning trophy and each member will receive a smartphone. They also get one-year Azure credits and one year LinkedIn Learning vouchers. Azure Developer exam voucher, digital certificate, digital badge, a swag bag, and one-on-one mentorship from preferred professionals for winning.
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Check out other stories making the news in the technology ecosystem in Africa and the Middle East.
12 teams made up of 60 university students across Kenya and Nigeria are participating in the second season of the Microsoft Africa Development Center, Game of Learners (GOL) virtual hackathon.
Over five weeks, the teams will take on the challenge of solving the education accessibility problems in Africa using technology. They will develop a solution, corresponding code and shippable product that will be judged by Microsoft and partners. Each team is led and captained by a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador.
The students will get access to developer resources and learn new technologies to build their products. Assisted by 40 volunteers from Microsoft who will train, mentor and coach them.
Meet the 12 Microsoft Hackathon Teams
Blooming education in Africa – Team Bloom
Team Crowducate – Crowd for education
Education to all – Team Elimisha
Team Kaizen – Change for better education
Making quality education accessible to Africans – Team Blazers
Team Tulearn –
Empowering every student – Team Eagle
Team Elite – Next stop, mass education
Aim for the peak – Team Peak
Where Africans can all be sabis – Team Sabi
Phoenix –
Team Shauku –
Each member of the winning team will be awarded with one year Azure credits, one year LinkedIn Learning vouchers, digital certificate and digital badge for winning and one on one mentorship from preferred professionals.
Follow the journey of the teams on social media platforms using the hashtag #GameOfLearners.
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Check out other stories making the news in the technology ecosystem in Africa and the Middle East.
A mobile-based medical application dubbed RemD (Remote Doctor) emerged as the winner of the Game of Learners (GOL) competition sponsored by Microsoft’s Africa Development Center (ADC). The mobile application was developed by five students drawn from Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Multimedia University of Kenya, Strathmore University and Mt. Kenya University.
The Game of Learners hackathon was to demonstrate the application of technology in developing e-health systems. That will enable patients to access normal medical services remotely.
Project RemD app was developed by five students namely Daniel Katungi (Mt. Kenya University), Sandra Makena (Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Joshua Melita (Strathmore University), Cyndrella Wafula of Multimedia University and led by Microsoft Student Ambassador Joshua Ndemenge (Dedan Kimathi University)
RemD uses technology to avail a set of tools and services that aim to bring health care services to a user or an organization. Through the app, a user requests for consultation services selecting whether they would like consultation with either a general physician, a psychiatrist, or a paediatrician. They then receive a message from the bot to begin triage where all the symptoms are recorded. After the triage, the bot sends all the information recorded to the doctor on the App. The doctor continues the conversation with a user via SMS. If the doctor deems it necessary, an in-person appointment can be set up.
“Any user seeking medical services can access our services through the mobile app or the USSD App. While the doctor on the other end can interact with these users using the windows app,” explains the RemD team leader, Joshua Ndemenge.
The African Development Center Managing Director Jack Ngare congratulated all the 25 participating students noting that some of the projects presented had big potential for commercialisation and Microsoft was willing to support them achieve that dream.
Apart from RemD, the other projects submitted include Tribore, MediChap, Mizizi and Motion, all showcasing various solutions to avail healthcare solutions via different technology platforms.
“While access to healthcare has been a key concern in Africa for ages, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the impetus to discover new technology solutions that will enable health providers handle an influx of people who get sick. It is encouraging to see the young generation and innovators harnessing the technology they have access to in developing solutions for the industry,” said Jack Ngare, the Africa Development Center Managing Director at the end of the competition.
He added, “We are keen at growing your skills and I will really be proud to see some of you that has participated in the Game of Learners joining one of the engineering teams at Microsoft.”
In addition, Microsoft Research is running a programme called HealthNext that seeks to discover some of the new sustainable methods of offering healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa and India and as such would be following up on some of the projects submitted to see how they can be scaled to the next level, Ngare said.
The Game of Learners hackathon, which kicked off in June, is aimed to empower the students to develop impactful solutions that can help address some of Africa’s and the world’s challenges. It is structured as a 5-week virtual hackathon comprised of weekly sprints where, at the end of the 5th week, all participating teams submit their final projects for judging. There were volunteers from ADC and Microsoft Global Sales and Marketing departments to train, coach the students throughout the 5-week engagement and judge each team’s final project submission.
To ensure that all participants had required tools to participate, every participant received:
Solar panel with battery and inverter
MiFi device loaded with data bundles
LinkedIn Learning vouchers
Azure Fundamentals exam vouchers
DevOps and agile practices training
1-year Azure credits
Digital certificate and digital badge for participation
Besides having the winning team featured on the ADC site along with announcements on social media, each standing member of the winning team will be rewarded with:
Additional 1-year Azure credits
Additional 1-year LinkedIn Learning vouchers
Digital certificate and digital badge for winning
1:1 mentorship from preferred Microsoft professionals
“We are so keen on enabling the next generation of great engineers from Africa and innovators that will not only benefit Microsoft, but the entire ecosystem as well,” Ngare said.
