On May 27, 2021, AHIA hosted Part III of our Bio-Medical Africa Innovator Series with a webinar entitled: Innovation, Not Aid: Stories of African-Led Healthcare Innovations. The webinar focused on the need to switch the global narrative from providing aid for healthcare in Africa to supporting and investing in sustainable, local innovation throughout Africa. Amelia Schaffner, Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Emory’s Goizueta Business School moderated the discussion with Dr. Adereni Abiodun, Founder & CEO of HelpMum (Nigeria), Sesinam Dagadu, Founder & CEO of SnooCode (Ghana), and Dr. Conrad Tankou, Founder & CEO of GIC Med (Cameroon). The panelists gave impassioned insights into their entrepreneurial journeys to address healthcare needs in their home countries, including the barriers that come with building sustainable innovation in Africa.
“The webinar focused on the need to switch the global narrative from providing aid for healthcare in Africa to supporting and investing in sustainable, local innovation throughout Africa.”
Please see highlights of the engaging discussion and the full recording below:
Founder and CEO of HelpMum
Dr. Adereni Abiodun is the co-founder and CEO of HelpMum, a social enterprise with the mission to eradicate maternal and infant mortality in Nigeria. Through the distribution of affordable Clean Birth kits, registration of mothers on their vaccination tracking system, trainings and renovation of community birth homes, HelpMum aims to become Africa’s leading mobile healthcare (mHealth) service provider.
Dr. Abiodun took attendees through important partnerships of HelpMum that are being used to scale their products. In the discussion portion, he stressed the importance of experience and education as well as the bias presented in the investors he has interacted with. “If we can change the perspective of funding African businesses, there will be a change [in sustaining innovation].”
“If we can change the perspective of funding African businesses, there will be a change [in sustaining innovation].”
Founder and CEO of SnooCODE
Sesinam Dagadu is the founder and CEO of SnooCODE, a digital addressing system built to surpass the capabilities of the addressing systems of western industrialized societies. SnooCODERED is a variant of the SnooCODE system for Emergency and Public Health, to accurately locate victims in emergency situations.
Sesinam shared the pros and cons of “moving to the problem” by set up operations in Ghana after living in the UK for some time. SnooCODE’s decision to move closer to the problem also meant that they were moving further from traditional funding opportunities. They took the risk. As a result, they have developed a more comprehensive solution better suited for the conditions they are operating in.
“In retrospect, we feel like we made the right decision for the technology by developing it with local talent, in the right place.”
Dr. Conrad Tankou
Founder and CEO of GIC Med
Dr. Conrad Tankou is the founder of CEO of GIC Med, a startup that offers cutting-edge and cost-effective MedTech and Telemedicine innovations, enabling poor, remote, and rural communities with the greatest need to enjoy affordable and accessible healthcare. They offer point-of-care, rapid, adaptable, solutions to underserved populations.
Conrad discussed the need to co-create solutions with people in different disciplines to achieve sustainable innovation. He also went into detail on the mindset people have on “African solutions” not being on the same level as Western solutions, which is not accurate.
“No matter how much you want to disrupt and build a context-based solution, you have a lot to prove and demonstrate for people to understand and then accept your solution.”
At the end of the session, Amelia asked each innovator to address the audience with a few learnings. Below are key takeaways:
Partnership matters. “Your first real ‘funding’ is an opener for other opportunities of funding.” - Dr. Abiodun
Passion and Impact. “In Africa you start below zero, so take it as a challenge and overcome. Never take a rejection with a lot of grievance, prove people wrong.” - Dr. Tankou
Solving true problems. “Solve the problem that people have, not the problem that you imagine they have.” - Sesinam Dagadu
This was the third session in the 2021 AHIA Bio-Medical Innovator series which was created to provide guidance in the biomedical landscape around Africa for African biomedical innovators in partnership with AfricaBio. For more details of the full series, visit the Bio Africa Innovator Resource Hub and lookout for more installments!
