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mLab SA, CSIR, DST renew m-health partnership

Kgaogelo Letsebe
By Kgaogelo Letsebe, Portals journalist
Johannesburg, 20 Apr 2017
mLab Southern Africa CEO Derrick Kotze.
mLab Southern Africa CEO Derrick Kotze.

mLab Southern Africa, a technology accelerator that focuses on skills, product and enterprise development within the digital innovation economy, has announced the second phase of reHealthAfrica, a community of innovators, researchers, technologists, entrepreneurs and designers.

reHealthAfrica is the result of a partnership of the accelerator, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). It is aimed at stimulating more open innovation and development within the African mobile health and wellness sector. The initiative was engineered at the launch of Demola in 2016.

Demola is a three-month facilitated co-creation programme with resources to help participants develop demo solutions for a specific challenge. Resources include companies, university students and researchers, both locally and internationally.

The second phase of reHealthAfrica commences with another season of Demola, which will include challenges and innovation work that will be hosted at mLab in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

This year's challenges include a 'video in healthcare' challenge, where participants are urged to use technologies such as Samsung VR Gear or Oculus Rift in conjunction with orthotic devices to aid in the care and recovery of persons using prosthetics.

Attendees will also be challenged to develop technological ways to empower teachers to make physical education more fun and inspiring as a means to curb rising childhood obesity. Another issue will be finding out what can be learned through genome mapping of the diabetes susceptibility gene by using IBM's Watson technology.

Speaking on the renewed partnership, mLab Southern Africa CEO Derrick Kotze said after the partners started work on mapping and understanding the m-health and wellness sector last year, it was clear it presented an important opportunity for Africa, its innovators and entrepreneurs.

"Following a first round of co-creation and innovation work with students and industry at the end of 2016, we proved a case for further investment and we are now more determined than ever to pull together the local digital health ecosystem and see some really innovative and locally-created solutions go to market."

Success stories from Demola 2016 include two participating students who were awarded internship opportunities at Powerhouse, a subsidiary of Innogy in Amsterdam. Challenge Team Medi-VR was awarded a seed grant to further develop its product after registering as a business.

The Demola network stretches across 11 countries and 14 locations, linking together over 50 universities and 600 company partners.

Kotze explains the aim of the challenges and innovation work is to create public labs for innovators that will lower the barrier of access to technology. "We want to provide a systemic approach to innovation using adapted innovation techniques within the national system of innovation. And to fully commit to youth empowerment in partnership with local and international industry through co-creation opportunities."

Adele Botha, principal researcher at CSIR, adds that innovations are only as strong as the ecosystem in which they are created. "As such, the collaboration between the Department of Science and Technology, CSIR, mLab Southern Africa, higher education, industry and other stakeholders will endeavour to stimulate a resilient South African m-health and wellness innovation ecosystem to ultimately benefit the people of South Africa."

Interested parties can visit http://capetown.demola.net/apply and http://johannesburg.demola.net.

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