Makerere has beaten tight competition from 6 other international universities to emerge victors of the higher education solutions network (HESN) contest. Makerere was the only African University selected to participate in the innovations competition.
MUK won after showcasing a malaria testing kit, named Matibabu, which digitally diagnoses malaria without having to prick the patient to take their blood sample. The Team also won $1500 (about sh3.7m).
They were declared the winners, followed by the College of William and Mary’s AidData Centre for Development Policy, the University of California, Berkeley, and then Duke University.
The team behind the winning Matibabu innovation comprises of Brian Gitta, Josiah Kavuma and Joseph Businge, all second year students from the College of Computing and Information Sciences, Simon Lubambo and Alvin Kabwama from the College of Engineering, Design, Art, and Technology.
Gitta told the New Vision that they looked at inventing Matibabu because “Malaria is still the leading cause of death in Africa. And a big number of these are children. So, if we could create an application that could help diagnose malaria easily without having to prick the patient, it would be something,”
This will sure improve the ranking of the 4th university in Africa. Kudos Gita and the entire team for representing MUK and Uganda at large!
