[media-credit name=”Swift Nigeria Team” align=”alignnone” width=”600″][/media-credit]

Paddy Mmaduakonam Anigbo and his team, Team Swift EC, won the recently conducted HealthMeetsTech hackathon, an event that brought health practitioners and tech experts together to address key issues in Nigeria’s health sector with innovative technological applications. The hackathon was supported by Facebook and held at the Co-Creation Hub in Yaba, Lagos.

Anigbo and his team developed the Swift Emergency Care, an online emergency response care system, the “Uber” for health emergencies in Nigeria. Nigeria’s healthcare system is riddled with numerous challenges and limitations, from medical negligence to a lack of infrastructure and personnel. One of which is the absence of ambulances in cases of emergency. Evidently, these limitations have resulted in several tragedies and avoidable deaths. But with innovations like that of Anigbo, Nigerians can expect better health care services.

 Technology will drive change and is the game changer for Nigeria’s development. That is my passion. – Paddy Mmaduakonam Anigbo

Another major challenge in the country’s healthcare system is a dearth of efficient public-private partnerships (PPP). PPP often drives growth and development in industries, but sadly, it has remained an untapped initiative in Nigeria’s health care until recently. Thankfully, EpiAFRIC, Nigeria Health Watch and Digital Health Nigeria have collaborated to bridge this huge gap with their collaboration and the organisation of the HealthMeetsTech hackathon.

Along with Swift Emergency Care, the hackathon produced several health tech innovations like Baby care, an app aimed to increase access to immunization services; BetaMedic, which aims to address the challenge of health literacy by providing information using pidgin English and comical skits; miChoice, a platform that aims to tackle the problem of contraceptive uptake by providing online consulting and referrals to reliable pharmaceutical stores; and Msured, an app aimed at solving the problem of health insurance by increasing ease of registration and payment of insurance.

Anigbo’s Team Swift EC won the first prize of $3000, followed by Team Babycare and Team BetaMedic. Contestants are to receive cash prizes; 10 percent given directly to the participants, and the remaining 90 percent to be channelled into developing their health-tech solutions until they are ready for the big market.