{"id":46309,"date":"2020-04-03T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T10:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/congo\/coronavirus-africa-who-in-africa-holds-first-hackathon-for-covid-19\/"},"modified":"2020-04-03T12:00:08","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T10:00:08","slug":"coronavirus-africa-who-in-africa-holds-first-hackathon-for-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/congo\/coronavirus-africa-who-in-africa-holds-first-hackathon-for-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus – Africa: WHO in Africa holds first \u2018hackathon\u2019 for COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa hosted its first virtual \u2018hackathon\u2019 bringing together 100 leading innovators from across sub-Saharan Africa in a bid to pioneer creative local solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic and address critical gaps in the regional response.\u00a0\u00a0As COVID-19 spreads rapidly across Africa, raising concerns about the strain on already fragile health systems, it has become clear that \u201csolutions in the response require action beyond the health sector,\u201d said Dr Moredreck Chibi, the WHO regional innovation advisor who facilitated the event. \u201cInnovation can play a critical role in that regard. It should be part of our DNA going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Hackathon participants were split into eight focus groups, each of which was tasked with developing an innovative and scalable concept aligned with one of the eight pillars of WHO\u2019s current COVID-19 response strategy: coordination; surveillance; risk communication and community cngagement; points of entry; laboratory; infection prevention and control; case management and continuity of essential health services; and operational and logistics support.\u00a0Over the course of the three-day event, groups worked on their respective projects via Zoom and WhatsApp, where they also received regular guidance and mentorship from WHO\u2019s innovation team at WHO Africa regional headquarters in Brazzaville.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On the final afternoon of the event, each group pitched their project to a team of WHO experts. Proposals ranged from mobile-driven self-diagnosis, screening and mapping tools to alternative low-cost methods for producing personal protective equipment (PPE).\u00a0The three highest ranking groups will now receive seed funding and further WHO support to help develop and implement their solutions.\u00a0\u201cA lot of us have independently been working on solutions for COVID-19 on a small scale, but the hackathon gave us the opportunity and the platform to be able to expand on our ideas collectively across our diverse backgrounds,\u201d said Laud Basing, a Ghanaian entrepreneur with a background in microbiology and biomedical engineering whose group came out top of the overall rankings.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Their proposed solution uses a mobile platform that incorporates screening at the community level, mass testing and validation as well as the mapping of risk levels in different areas in real time for stakeholders including community health workers to then tailor their responses accordingly.\u00a0\u201cThe hackathon was a really incredible experience,\u201d said William Wasswa, a Ugandan biomedical engineer whose team was among the top three for their proposed x-ray based self-screening platform, which aims to counter a shortage of testing kits in many African countries. \u201cWHO must be credited for bringing so many different African innovators together,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to evolve in Africa is still a work in progress, and the response is still being adapted to the African context. Solidarity and the sharing of ideas across the region will be an important part of that process. With that in mind, Dr Chibi plans to continue developing WHO\u2019s new hackathon model in the coming weeks.\u00a0\u201cThrough this new platform, we can help people to see the relevance of WHO in providing practical solutions, so I think it’s game-changing in the way we are approaching things and our regional director Dr Moeti is very willing to support wherever necessary to make sure that we sustain some of these initiatives,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cAfrican countries can set an example in terms of innovation and solutions that are tailored to limited resource settings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of WHO Regional Office for Africa.<\/i>
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South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Central Africa Congo<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa hosted its first virtual \u2018hackathon\u2019 bringing together 100 leading innovators from across sub-Saharan Africa in a bid to pioneer creative local solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic and address critical gaps in the regional response.\u00a0\u00a0As COVID-19 spreads rapidly across Africa, raising concerns about the strain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":188473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8377],"tags":[258,256,4696,4554,8378,8379,8381,32489,32926,33491,6275,257,254,8380],"class_list":["post-46309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-congo","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-central-africa","tag-congo","tag-congo-news","tag-congo-republic","tag-congo-brazzaville","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid19","tag-hackathon","tag-holds","tag-news","tag-south-africa-today","tag-west-congo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}