KENYA – The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 20-year running program, the Grand Challenge, has selected five startups from Kenya who are among 50 grant recipients who are developing global health and development solutions for their communities using AI-enabled large language models (LLMs).

These years Grand Challenge was guided by the goal of reducing global inequity, the call for proposals specifically targeted researchers and innovators in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). 

The foundation received more than 1,300 proposals, more than 80% of which were from LMICs, within two weeks of posting its request for proposals. 

The nearly 50 selected projects from 17 LMICs are aligned with the foundation’s goal of fostering a global innovation ecosystem in places where it will have the most impact. 

Each recipient will receive up to US$100,000 to advance its research project, for a total of US$5 million in grants.

The findings of these projects will be shared at the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in Dakar, Senegal, this October.

Kedest Tesfagiorgis, deputy director of Global Partnerships & Grand Challenges at the Gates Foundation said, “For 20 years, the foundation has sought and seeded innovation to solve the world’s hardest problems. We believe that accelerating progress in health and development requires collaboration among innovators from as many disciplines and as many countries as possible.”

Tesfagiorgis added that maximizing the potential of AI required a global community of creative thinkers bringing their unique perspectives and learning from each other.

Examples of Grant Challenge winners include how LLMs can help frontline health workers in India, where one woman dies every 20 minutes in childbirth, improve the management of high-risk pregnancies.

Also a tailored agricultural advice to individual smallholder farmers in Uganda, who are exposed to the devastating effects of crop diseases and pests.

As well as, was a startup providing teacher coaching to improve educational outcomes in Mali, and give critical financial advice through a voice-to-text interface to rural women farmers and business owners in Nigeria.

The Kenyan Grand Challenge Laureates are;

  • Access Afya’s mDaktari- fundamentally changing healthcare accessibility

Daphne Ngunjiri of Access Afya is integrating ChatGPT into a virtual clinic application, mDaktari, to support clinicians and better respond to patient inquiries. 

Njungiri notes that poor quality healthcare results in 5.7 million deaths in low- and middle-income countries, emphasizing the need to increase healthcare quality as well as accessibility.

Hence, the mDaktari platform combines a digital and physical healthcare network, telemedicine, and localized patient health data to support patients and clinicians in low-income communities from diagnosis to treatment. 

They propose to scale their approach using Large Language Models (LLMs) and anonymous patient data from multiple sources which will increase the scope, speed, and quality of responses to patients’ queries in their preferred language, and support clinicians to provide accurate diagnoses and treatments.

  • Kytabu company’s Somanasi- bringing learning resources to every Kenyan Student

Second is Tonee Ndungu of Kytabu Company Ltd developed a comprehensive AI-powered mobile application, SOMANASI to provide personalized education to every student in Kenya.

Ndugu adds that Kenya suffers from widespread educational inequities with many students failing to receive individualized attention.

The application will harness ChatGPT-4 and act as an intelligent virtual tutor that delivers tailored content, adaptive learning experiences, and interactive guidance. 

They will collaborate with experts to design high-quality materials aligned with the Kenyan curriculum and cultural context. 

They will also engage students, teachers, and educational stakeholders in the design process, and mitigate bias by considering the full diversity of the student population.

  • Dalberg Global Development Advisors’ VIDA PLUS- democratizing healthcare information  

Third on the Grand Challenge recipient list is Christophe Bocquet of Dalberg Global Development Advisors (K) Ltd. who developed  VIDA PLUS, a chatbot accessible via WhatsApp that delivers public health information through live interaction to health officials, particularly in rural areas, to support their decision-making. 

VIDAPLUS acknowledges that accessing relevant public health information is often challenging for health workers in rural areas who have limited access to technology and data literacy. 

The application will integrate GPT-3.5-Turbo into the national health management information system (HMIS), which comprises data on health outcomes, health facilities and utilization, and disease surveillance. 

Moreover, it will enable health officials to ask questions on topics such as maternal health, infections, vaccinations, and hospitalization, and receive tailored answers via WhatsApp.

Health officials will be involved in the design, deployment, and testing stages, and they will also plan the scale-up, including a cost and impact analysis.

  • Intellisoft Consulting Ltd- changing attitudes and driving conversions around NCDs

The fourth founder is Martin Mwangi of Intellisoft Consulting Ltd. who build an application-supported LLM to improve knowledge, attitudes, and practices surrounding the risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCD) for young people in Kenya.

Mwangi underscores that NCDs constitute the leading cause of mortality globally, accounting for three-quarters of deaths worldwide. 

Moreover, many Kenyans lack information on NCDs and their major risk factors, which include unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and harmful alcohol use. 

The consulting firm will form an interdisciplinary Community Advisory Board, including government officials, researchers, and young people, to guide the design, analysis, and dissemination of the app. 

It will also seek to recruit Kenyans aged 18–34 from community-based sites, such as universities and malls, to evaluate the application’s ability to improve knowledge, attitudes, and practices surrounding NCD risk factors.

  • Penda Health Limited – improving patient care anywhere and everywhere

The fifth and final laureate is Robert Korom of Penda Health Limited who is integrating ChatGPT-4 into their established patient communication system to increase consultation efficiency and the speed of delivering accurate health information in Kenya. 

Their existing chat-based digital health solution relies on a dedicated team of clinicians and call center agents to serve low-income Kenyans; however, increasing needs are leading to longer response times. 

They propose to blend the empathetic and intuitive nature of human interaction with the instantaneous, data-driven capabilities of AI to improve throughput, response times, and patient experience. 

This will create a hybrid model where clinical call center agents work hand-in-hand with AI. They will carry out a proof-of-concept involving a limited field test to monitor patient satisfaction, efficiency, and relevance of responses.

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