On January 15th 2019, 3 innovator teams were hosted at RAN for pitch sessions-sharing about their innovations. Each team was given 10 mins to pitch their idea and 5 minutes were allocated for comments and reactions to the presentation.

The innovator teams which pitched their proposed solutions were;

  • Quality Tutor
  • Sister’s Keeper
  • MyHealth
  1. Quality Tutor

Team Lead; Gabriel Semakula, semakalugabriel@gmail.com

The Problem

Students in many schools have no access to continuous assessments. In that, they only sit for examinations twice in a term. The examinations students sit for while in school are only ranked at school level, they cannot use them to assess their performance at national level. Many parents need tutors to teach their students during holidays but the service is very expensive, at times you find that a parent has to pay over 50,000 Uganda Shillings every day in order to get a teacher to attend to his or her child on a one on one basis. Many schools in Uganda are not taking practical lessons serious in that students rarely do ‘practicals’, they just read the theory of the practical and cram it. Students do not have a way in which they can make a follow up of their academic performance right from senior 1- senior 6, they always lose their report cards yet they may need to refer to them at some point in time.

There are some tricks for better performance that students get to know about during their school time but they do not have means to further share these methods with the rest of the students as many leave their schools after sitting final exams and never return. Some face challenges during their stay at school but do not have means to share these challenges. Many students in the country do not have access to quality career guidance.

Proposed Solution
The team intends to create a platform (a website with an application along with it) where students can get linked to professional people like doctors, engineers and lawyers who can share with them about those fields so that students can get to know what it means to be in which field. Through this platform students shall be provided with weekly tests that will be marked automatically and since students across the country will have access to these tests, they shall be ranked at a national level. The platform shall also onboard up teachers who are willing to do coaching so that in case a parent needs a tutor, it is easier and cheaper to access them. This platform will allow students to continuously post their results so that the system automatically creates a graph with which a student can easily make a follow up of their performance. On this same platform there shall be tutorials of the different practical lessons conducted so that students can watch them to better their understanding. We shall also create an area on this platform where old students that performed well can share the techniques they used with those still in the system.

Uniqueness of the solution

Currently in the country there is no such platform where students from different schools can sit for the same examination and their results are ranked at national level, but with this innovation we shall be ranking all the students who sit for this examination together so that they can compete not only at school level but also at national level. The career guidance done here will involve students interacting with people who are already in more effective fields. The tutors will include students and since students understand each other better than their teachers, this kind of tutoring will be very effective.

Comments and advice

  • The Problem is diverse. Concentrate on a particular problem/narrow it down to some aspects.
  • Be cautious of facts infront of particular audiences, e.g. you may need to produce evidence that there is examination mal-practice or cheating.
  • Good quality notes; what do you take as “good”?
  • The payments should have a payment module showing how the platform shall be generating revenue for sustainability.
  • Time management is key; ensure that your presentation fits with in the time given.
  • Concentrate on the easier features like career guidance and launch them faster as you concurrently work on other plugins like content.
  1. Sister’s Keeper

Team lead: Herman Okia, hermanokiya@gmail.com +256702226260

Problem statement

Population-level surveys based on reports from victims provide the most accurate estimates of the prevalence of intimate partner violence and sexual violence. A 2013 analysis conduct by WHO with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the South Africa Medical Research Council, used existing data from over 80 countries and found that worldwide, 1 in 3, or 35%, of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or non-partner sexual violence. 

Almost one third (30%) of all women who have been in a relationship have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner. The prevalence estimates of intimate partner violence range from 23.2% in high-income countries and 24.6% in the WHO Western Pacific region to 37% in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region, and 37.7% in the WHO South-East Asia region

Proposed Solution

Sisters Keeper is an organization that is championing the fight against gender-based violence. The team thought of the most effective way and decided to contribute to not only curbing but to prevent grave cases of violence against women. If help is accorded immediately someone needs it, then there is a chance that lives can be saved and culprits brought to book. This is how they came up with the mobile application code named Sisters Keeper. In brief the application has 3 major features namely;

  1. Stories: Under stories, girls/ women who have experienced violence re encouraged to share their experiences. By sharing, they can be accorded necessary professional help and they also give strength to other victims who are afraid to speak up about their plight to come out and speak. We have an anonymous feature because we take the privacy of the victims serious. Thus they can share their stories and if they decide to share anonymously then at a tap of a button their identity is hidden.
  2. The app also has a feature that enables a victim to access professional counseling services. On this app. Sexual and physical violence goes along way in affecting an individual psychologically so the team saw it pertinent to provide this kind of help. The team has lined up a number of counselors who are willing to help victims out there. A victim (or any one in need of counseling) just has to go under the counseling feature and access a number of available professional counselors. 
  3. Lastly there is the EMERGENCY feature. This enables any body that finds themselves at risk of violence to be able to discreetly send out an emergency call for help through text message that is integrated with location. Whoever has the SISTERSKEEPER app is required to enter any 5 contacts of people who are alerted incases of emergency. These 5 contacts are informed through Short Standard Message (SMS) that someone is in need of urgent help and they are also alerted of the exact location of this person seeking for help.

Comments/Feedback

  • Presentation; Please check your presentation; do not read word by word. Use graphics.
  • Slide quality is lacking use the 5-12 rule especially the problem statement.
  • Let your solution be separate from the problem.
  • You are required to think about the business aspects of the app for sustainability.
  • The team was advised to find synergies with the RAN EVAWG innovations and also look out for the UN Women 2nd phase funding in the near future so as to pilot and scale their idea.
  1. MyHealth

Team lead: Twinamatsiko Nelson, drtwinamasikonelson@gmail.com

+256 703 440508

Problem

Health care financing has been an area of neglect in Uganda. In countries like Ethiopia and other African countries like Ghana, public policy in health focuses almost exclusively on financing and incentive issues and those countries in improving access and quality of care have made much progress. Uganda continues to limp along with poorly performing public healthcare delivery systems, which almost in other countries have abandoned for mixed systems financed through public purchasers or insurers financed predominantly from tax revenues.

At 9.6 % of total government expenditure, public spending on health is far below the Abuja target of 15% that Government of Uganda (GoU) committed to. Prepayments form a small proportion of funding for Uganda’s health sector. There is limited cross-subsidization and high fragmentation within and between health financing mechanisms, mainly due to high reliance on out-of-pocket payments and limited prepayment mechanisms. Overall, Uganda’s current health financing is inequitable and fragmented.

A resolution of the 58th World Health Assembly urges Member States to ensure that health financing includes a method for prepayment of financial contributions, so as to enhance risk-sharing and reduce catastrophic health expenditure and impoverishment of care-seeking individual. Equitable financing is based on: financial protection (no one in need of health services should be denied access due to inability to pay and households’ livelihoods should not be threatened by the costs of health care).

Proposed Solution

Many societies have embraced microfinance based on economic theory as a major strategic tool to combat the severe poverty, particularly in rural areas. This stems mainly from the belief that providing small loans, savings facilities, insurance products, money transfer services and skills training to poor people, and more especially women, could be a way of providing opportunities to be self-reliant and play active roles in their households and communities and the economy as a whole (Yunus, 2001).

Because of the availability of a well-structured system that deals with saving (SACCOS/Cooperatives), engaging them in health saving without disrupting their core purpose of the current saving would be a better way in engaging the rural and poor population in matters concerning their health. This can be done through engaging the SACCO leaders and discussing with them the benefits of their members contributing an additional amount of money purposely for their health. This risk pooling will ensure that the risk related to out-of-pocket financing for health services is borne by all members of the pool (SACCO members) and not by each member as it is at present whereby people need to directly pay for health services using out-of-pocket. The main purpose is to share the financial risk associated with health interventions for which there is uncertain need.

For individuals not in any SACCO or cooperative and those not willing to enroll in the micro-health insurance will create individual health saving accounts where they deposit any amount of money they want at any time.

MYHealth will thereafter pay for their health services in times of need using the money they would have saved. For people under this account, will be given credit services incase their health savings are not totaling to the amount they have spent on the health services.

MYHealth will also have a platform where we provide mobile pharmacies to our clients who are far away from the pharmacies and physically incapable upon request for delivery. We shall also offer a service of connecting physicians and consultants with our clients depending on the health problem of our client and upon request.

MYHealth shall also connect our clients with hospitals, and ambulances in case of any medical emergency. This will be done through accessing our mobile application. We hope to employ physicians who will be giving free medical education and consultancy online using toll-free calls and social media pages.

MYHealth platforms will be through use of mobile money (electronic payment), website interface and an application.

Comments/Feedback

  • Innovator needs to decide on the low hanging fruits in the platform and launch faster. These are the features that do not require a lot of funds to implement.
  • There is need to synthesize how you hope to guarantee safety of members’ money.
  • Do research on the problem you are tackling to ground the cores n the problem with statistical evidence.