Our first hackathon competition was joined by students from UGHE, Kepler University, African Leadership University, and Carnegie Mellon University. More than 40 participants with different backgrounds came together and created eight innovative solutions to the most pressing health issues.

We sincerely congratulate the top three winners of this year’s hackathon competition: 

First Place: Mothers’ Corner – Ndanga Laura, Lara Tesi, Hoziana Niyotwiringiye, Gretchen Anne Walch, Clemence Ishimwe, Nelly Numumaro  

Mothers’ Corner team aims to create a platform for expecting mothers to share and get information and tips for their pregnancy needs. 

Second Place: Baho Mental Health – Justine Mutoniwase, Lucky Gondwe, Modeste Mwiseneza, Aloysius Ugwu, Mahlet Tadesse 

Baho team intends to create a platform to provide mental health assistance to those in need at an early stage before it is too late for them to end up in suicide options.  

Thrid Place: Kira – Clovis Nkeramihigo, Shabe Rosine, Felicite Munezero, Anaise Nisingizwe, Natnael Shimelash, Aimable Uwimana

Kira team aims to create an intervention system to promote patients’ follow up at the hospital.

We are grateful for the presence of our partners, Professor Wiljeana Glover, and Professor Adam Sulkowski from Babson College to facilitate and make this competition a success. See you next year. 

Facilitators:

Professor Wiljeana Glover 

Professor Wiljeana Glover is the Kletjian Foundation Distinguished Professor for Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Founding Faculty Director of the KMH Center for Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She conducts research studies in a variety of countries, including the U.S., Mexico, Israel, South Africa, and Haiti, and engages undergraduate, graduate, and executive education students in implementation-focused experiential learning. 

Professor Adam Sulkowski

Adam Sulkowski is an angel investor, professor of law and sustainability at the Babson College – the #1 school for entrepreneurs, and has written a book profiling entrepreneurial leaders who overcame challenges in difficult contexts, based on visits to 122 countries: Extreme Entrepreneurship.

Shagun Tuli   

Shagun Tuli is an MGHD student in the gender sexual and reproductive health cohort. She graduated from Kasturba Medical College Mangalore in 2020 and has won over 6 hackathons as a medical student. She is passionate about medical innovation and volunteers as a clinical advisor for startups.

Emmanuel Nsanganwa 

Emmanuel Nsanganwa is a rising junior from Rwanda pursuing finance and economics at Babson College. He has a deep interest in applying his business skills to impact the health sector in Rwanda. Emmanuel’s superpower is the ability to operate in chaos and create solutions. Emmanuel believes every world’s pressing issue can be solved if the power of entrepreneurship is optimally harnessed across all sectors.

Judges:

Zahra Kassam 

Zahra Kassam is an innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership specialist, with a background in urban planning and design and finance. As an entrepreneur, she has worked with CBO’s, NGO’s, UN, the private sector and the government to create award-winning citywide interventions in Kenya. She has also supported start-ups and changemakers to realize change and bring innovation across Africa. In addition to this professional experience, she has experience in various innovation projects from facilitating, mentoring and coaching to developing curriculums. Through this experience, she is extremely familiar with the startup community and innovators at scale stage and existing partners in the ecosystem. Zahra is working with innovators by facilitating design and innovation strategies with partners to generate millions of dollars for the client’s trusted ecosystem. Zahra has worked with entrepreneurs on their scaling journeys from various sectors such as solar, media, education, and technology projects. She takes a pan-African approach to developing innovative products and services in an array of sectors such as Public Health, Digital Security, Food Security, and Education to name a few. 

Ritu Kamal 

Ritu Kamal is the director of product strategy at Illumina. She was previously the vice president of product at Fabric Genomics, an early-stage start-up for clinical genomic analysis. She also has worked at CellMax Life as head of product, and at Roche Diagnostics as a scientist. She was a 2010 Stanford-India Biodesign Fellow, where she developed new medical devices to improve maternal and neonatal health. She also has worked in South Africa on preventing the transmission of HIV/AIDS from mothers to newborn children. As the associate director for global programs at Stanford Biodesign, Ritu is part of the faculty team responsible for programs such as Singapore Biodesign, Global Faculty-in-Training, and Japan Biodesign. She has a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Douglas Haggstrom   

Douglas Haggastrom is an experienced Digital, Healthcare and Strategy professional with broad experience across Europe and Australia. He believes in working together with partners and colleagues to deliver innovative products, processes and services that make an impact to existing and new businesses. He is especially triggered by working on products that add value to society. He has Commercialization, Strategy definition, Organizational design, Change Management and Operational experience in a variety of industries including Healthcare, Financial Services, IT Development and Delivery, Media and Retail. 

Zach Edmonds 

Seasoned clinician with a proven track record of mentoring MedTech entrepreneurs and early-stage companies in the development of life changing technologies. As a full-time practicing hospitalist with Palo Alto Medical Foundation, he co-leads a team of 28 physicians across 3 hospitals. When not seeing patients, he is part of the senior staff at Fogarty Innovation where he mentors a variety of early-stage companies. In his role with Stanford Biodesign, he leads the effort to broaden clinical experiences for Biodesign Fellows in the community setting. Zach holds an MD from the UCLA School of Medicine and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He completed Internal Medicine Residency and the Biodesign Fellowship at Stanford University. 

Dr. Frederick St Goar 

Dr. Frederick St Goar, MD is a Cardiology Specialist in Mountain View, CA and has over 38 years of experience in the medical field. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1984. He is affiliated with medical facilities such as Mills-peninsula Medical Center and Mountain View Campus (El Camino Hospital).