Opportunity Area

How might we improve access to maternal health pharmaceuticals and supplies for the youth in Uganda?

Sub Area:

Improve information flow between distribution actors, health facilities and the end-user (youth) to drive demand for services;

What is the title of your idea?

Bulamu mobile app

Describe your idea in one sentence.

A mobile app providing direct information flow between the nearest good health center and the pregnant woman.

Where are you located?

Entebbe

Are you incorporated?

No

If not, do you hope to complete within the next one month once accepted into the program?

Yes

How did you come up with the idea? Explain briefly how you identified the need or opportunity?

Most pregnant women especially the youths are lazy to go for antenatal care or medications due to the fact that they think there is no need to go for antenatal checkups, they are not sure of which services are offered by different health centers, they are lazy to go to far big hospitals to get medication. They therefore ignore antenatal and resort to exercises and self medication, this has been one of the major causes of pre-eclampsia in most pregnant women in Uganda and Africa at large.
So, with the trending transformative digital technology of mobile applications that have caught the attention of most people especially the youth, a mobile app to solve this problem would be a good idea.

What problem does your idea solve in the market?

laziness and Ignorance by pregnant women especially the youths in accessing antenatal care and medication.

It is also solving the problem of self medication especially using local herbs by most pregnant women.

Solving the problem of failure to take the right dozes of medicine in the right time due to reasons of forgetting.

Who are the beneficiaries of your solution and how will they benefit?

Pregnant women especially the youths,

They will benefit through getting direct access to health information, health facilities and personal doctors from their places of convenience and daily health tips , also through receiving direct scheduled calls from the health centers reminding them of their next visits to the hospitals for antenatal checkups.

Those with HIV will also be able to interact with doctors and counselors to get information about mother to child prevention method.

Why are you convinced your idea will solve the challenge or need?

I am convinced that my idea will solve the challenge because currently the trending technology today is of mobile apps and these have taken most of the youths’ attention today like “watsapp”, So a youth having an app to give her direct access to medical care, information,location of health centers, ambulance services information incase of emergency,personal counselor,personal doctor, scheduled reminder calls reminding them of their next antenatal visit to the hospital will solve the challenge

What other initiatives like yours exist out there? How will you differentiate yourself?

Daily health tips app but it doesn’t give the platform for one to chat with a personal counselor or to locate a near by health facility to receive antenatal care.
“Bulamu” will give locations on a map to get nearest ambulances in cases of emergency to avoid inconveniences brought about by emergency situations e.g in case of abrupt increase in pressure for the pregnant woman, accidents etc.

This will also provide a platform to live chat with a personal counselor and a doctor in case of any questions.

Villages health teams exist but these are not that efficient because they don’t cover all pregnant women in a given area, and also giving an example,in my area Entebbe, i have never met any VHT, actually i have only met one when i was in Kasese district, and they only worked after having gotten a lot of funds from the government and NGOs. These teams cannot help the pregnant woman to remind her of her next antenatal visit but the app will do that, actually it will give a reminder call.

What have you done up-to date to test your idea with potential users? What learnings do you have to share?

We have so far tested it with Mugambe Sylvia,a pregnant youth aged 26 who is lazy to go to kisubi hospital for antenatal and it has helped her keep directly communicating with her gynecologist.
Recently she just recieved a call from kisubi reminding her of her next antenatal visit which is due to take place on 17th of january 2017.
So far the lessons i have got from her are that she recommended that it should be more friendly in a way that the number that is calling her should be a full digit number instead of a short code because she almost refused to pick thinking its a call from telecom companies that give calls making adverts.

Please tell us about each founder and their roles on the team. How do you know your founders and how long have you worked together?

Isa Adam(Bio-medical lab technologist.) – He is the team leader.

Katusiime Maria – Software developer on the team.

Kibalama Isaac – Data collector and marketing

Ankunda Annita – Data collector and marketing

We got to know each other from a project we held in kasese that involved us in various activities championing one health in the municipality.

we have worked together for 6-months now.

Please tell us about other team members that are not cofounders.

Please describe each founder’s previous experience starting out a business or working in the area of sexual reproductive health? Or You can share anything impressive that each founder brings to the team.

Isa Adam – Its quiet challenging since most women don’t want to open up due to the fact that they are speaking to a man about sexual health issues.
Maria Katusiime- Have worked with Celestini program before developing an app that was to collect data from pregnant women from villages and directly sending the data to an online database that was located in kampala. This data was to help analyse cases of pre-eclampsia and its prevalence. According to what we obtained, it showed that the number of ignorant pregnant women is still big and one of the most causes of pre-eclampsia was lack of antenatal care due to both laziness and ignorance. Therefore, pre-eclampsia is one of the leading causes of death in pregnant women here in Uganda.

Where is your team located? Please indicate the city or town.

Entebbe

Which members of your team will attend the program full-time?

Katusiime Maria

isa Adam

Isaac Stephen

Annita Ankunda

Please share a link to a 3 minute online video that best describes your idea and your team

N/A

Supporting Documents

N/A

How old are you?

23

Gender

Female