By Andrew Mambondiyani
Kigali, Rwanda – The Next Einstein Forum (NEF), an initiative of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in partnership with the Robert Bosch Stiftung, has announced the top 16 finalists for its second edition of the Ci2i innovation competition.
Launched in 2013, the NEF is a platform that connects science, society and policy in Africa and the rest of the world – with the goal to leverage science for human development globally and believes that Africa’s contributions to the global scientific community are critical for global progress. At the centre of NEF efforts are Africa’s young people, the driving force for Africa’s scientific renaissance, NEF said in a statement.
Two Zimbabweans, Munyaradzi Rushambwa, and Daniel Nyabadza, are among the young scientists and entrepreneurs, who will compete to win the top prize in three categories: Data Science and Deep Tech Innovations, Personalized Health Innovations and Climate Smart Innovations.
The final two in each category will then present in plenary on the 28th of March with the winner to be announced live at the closing ceremony of the NEF Global Gathering 2018.
Each category winner will receive $25 000 in prize money.
Rushambwa is designing a system through which doctors can get real-time physiological information about patients from anywhere in the world. This system helps to give a better assessment of individuals by top quality physicians from anywhere in the world. He is using the IoT technology to lower healthcare consultation cost and increase healthcare service coverage to remote areas.
And Nyabadza is the founder of Digitech, which developed an electronic handheld smart cane for the visually impaired that makes use of image recognition services and other artificial intelligence services facilitated for usage by IBM Research (South Africa). The technology offers a greater degree of navigational freedom and contextual awareness of environment for blind candidates to enable them to be aware of their environment as if they had the gift of sight leveraging real-time cloud artificial intelligence services.
“At the NEF we believe that inventions, especially science-driven ones that can be scaled up, are critical to Africa’s transformation. The NEF Ci2i challenge rewards research-based innovations and products that have a direct impact on our communities. The selected finalists’ innovations address climate change, various health challenges and push the envelope by proposing new data science or advanced (deep tech) technologies. We look forward to seeing all their ideas come to life,” said Thierry Zomahoun, President, and CEO of AIMS and Founder and Chair of Next Einstein Forum.
The NEF received 133 applications from which the top 16 were selected. The top 16 will pitch their innovations in three categories to judges for three to four minutes each, focusing on impact and scalability.
“With its focus on research-based innovations, Ci2i will help to surface important issues impacting families and communities in Africa,” said Josh Ghaim, Chief Technology Officer, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. “We look forward to engaging with the continent’s next generation of entrepreneurs and scientists, helping advance their innovative ideas and bringing meaningful, transformational solutions to patients and consumers on the continent as well as around the world.”
The judges for the competition include leaders from Johnson & Johnson, Elsevier, Rwanda Biomedical Center, Hello Tomorrow, Carnegie Mellon University, IBM Africa, the African Development Bank, and others.