Infrastructure

Abel Worku of Jimma University in Ethiopia will develop a prototype of an improved compound light microscope using digital image processing and monochromatic light sources that will improve the quality of laboratory services.

Zeynu Zuber of St. Paul Hospital Millennium Medical College in Ethiopia will locally develop an external fixator for the treatment of fractured bones with the intention of manufacturing it in Ethiopia in the future to improve its availability and lower the cost for the treatment.

Melkamu Berhane of Jimma University in Ethiopia will translate current knowledge to develop appropriate therapeutic foods for the management of persistent diarrhea in children from locally available ingredients to improve, through the subsequent adoption and scale-up of the intervention, and to lead to policy recommendations.

Ashenafi Tazebew of the University of Gondar in Ethiopia will develop a patient early-warning score system for hospitals that will help the healthcare providers in the hospitals and foster timely action and better patient management.

Drew Arenth, Benjamin Fels, and Suvrit Sra of Macro-Eyes in the U.S. are applying a statistical machine learning approach to the immunization supply chains of health facilities in Tanzania that accurately and continuously predicts demand to ensure the right vaccines and levels are being stocked. Currently, vaccine supply is largely fixed or driven by depleted stocks. This leaves children unable to be vaccinated due to stock outs at clinics, as well as often high levels of waste, which could both be overcome by better forecasting vaccination needs for individual clinics.

Lucy Kathuri-Ogola of Kenyatta University in Kenya will train young people to be outreach youth champions to support local smallholder farming households with low food security in Kenya by teaching them new agricultural practices and building financial and social support networks. They will develop a mobile phone application and training platform and test their approach in selected rural and urban areas in Kenya where many smallholder farming families rely heavily on food relief.

Alizée Lozac'hmeur of Makesense in Paris will develop online mobile and web applications and provide opportunities to engage with experts and funders as part of a tailor-made approach to help young people learn about and solve the health and social issues that matter to them. They will integrate their digital platform, where participants can register their details and issue of interest, with a project database and events calendar to promote collaborations.

Joshua Warren and Daniel Weinberger of Yale University in the U.S. will develop an analytical framework to improve local estimates of vaccine coverage in low- to middle-income countries. Current estimates can be unreliable, due to errors and biases in record-keeping and difficulties in estimating local population sizes, and are further complicated when children are vaccinated outside of their home administrative district.

David Anderson of the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research in Australia will develop a low-cost, simple to use, sample collection device to improve sample quality and ensure accurate and timely diagnosis in remote, low-resource areas. Obtaining high quality serum samples needed for diagnosing a variety of diseases is challenging in these regions due to the lack of equipment and expertise to process the samples and stabilize them for transport to the diagnostic laboratories.

William Grover of the University of California, Riverside, in the U.S. will create a medical record that is permanently attached to its human sample using micron-sized microtransponder chips added to the samples during collection. These chips will permanently link the sample to the patient, and provide their contact details, when and where the sample was collected, and the test results.