(A column highlighting scientific, technological, engineering, and design innovation in Africa)
With mobile penetration high in his native country, even in rural areas, Cameroonian Nteff Alain, 22, a telecommunications engineering student who once planned to become a doctor, developed a mobile application to help alleviate high death rates among new borns and pregnant women in Cameroon. He named the app GiftedMom.
The first mobile health platform in Central Africa, GiftedMom comprises a Web and mobile platform, SMS services and Google fusion tables. It disseminates information on the proper management of pregnancy and a healthy follow up for newborns. Alain works with health providers and medical students to create profiles for pregnant women in order to send them automated alerts to track their antenatal care.
Alain came up with the idea for the GiftedMom app in 2012, while visiting a rural hospital where a friend was doing a medical internship and learning of the high number of premature babies that had died the same week of diseases and infections that can be treated with proper antenatal care. He built an SMS application, and formed a partnership with Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., to obtain general information women need during pregnancy. Medical students customized the information into Cameroon-specific content for text messages.
The platform now has more than 1,200 pregnant women and mothers of newborns registered, and operates in 15 rural communities nationwide. That has resulted in a 20 percent increase in antenatal attendance rate for pregnant women in those communities. To cover the cost of sending text messages, Alain sells advertising space to companies that provide maternal and infant products. Advertisers pay 25 CFA francs, about 5 U.S. cents, for every SMS sent.
Alain also developed an Android app to help teenage mothers and health workers in underserved areas calculate due dates for delivery. His goal is to expand GiftedMom across Cameroon and branch out to the rest of Africa, beginning with Central Africa, where newborn and pregnancy fatalities are particularly high.
Alain won the 2014 Anzisha Prize for Africa entrepreneur of the year.
