To help health workers in nomad communities effectively track pregnant mothers and infants, a hybrid GPS tracker innovation is in the works.
The tracker is an innovation by Dahabo Adi Galgalo, a trained medical laboratory technologist-cum-epidemiologist from Marsabit County, alongside engineering experts as reported by Nation.
The innovation is expected to help healthcare workers reach far-flung populations to give and improve maternal and infant health in northern Kenya.
Ms. Galgalo said he was inspired by her experience of having been born in a nomadic community where she dreamt of developing people-centered solutions that can positively transform healthcare delivery through building tech-enabled healthcare that can consequently drive sustained impacts.
In 2017, she received an award for this innovation which she now wants to revamp to make it more modernized. She was one of five Kenyans, among eight African innovators that received $100,000 or Kes1 million as a grant for this innovation.
They are beneficiaries of the African Academy of Sciences and the NEPAD Agency’s Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA), which through the Grand Challenges Africa, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Institut Pasteur of Paris,
She said that a team of mechanical, electrical, and computer engineers were currently done with the first phase of the modernisation of her GPS tracker and had achieved 60 per cent completion; the second phase is ongoing and will lead to the final third phase.
She says she is working with Amref (Innovate for Life) to install her GPS tracker with a ‘Save Our Souls’ component that will allow it to function optimally in achieving favorable outcomes in the war on maternal and infant deaths.
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