By Beatrice Obwocha
A Kenyan team, MedAfrica has won the annual global Ericsson Application Awards for developing a mobile platform to improve health.
The team was feted in Stockholm, Sweden after developing the mobile app which seeks to improve the health of communities in Africa by increasing access to health-care related information and services via mobile phones.
The team beat over 200 contestant including competitors from Egypt and China in the finals.
Speaking at the award ceremony, Med Africa team leader Steve Mutinda said the application will help improve health related problems in Africa.
“It has been an exciting journey and we are proud to be the global winners. We are confident that our application will be of great support to improving health related problems on the African continent and beyond,” he said.
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Jan Färjh, the Head of Ericsson Research and host of the awards, said MedAfrica was an excellent example of applications in the Networked Society.
The Ericsson Application Awards is an annual competition for application developers.
The market for mobile apps has exploded over the past few years and is expected to be worth more than US $ 21 billion in 2014.
The growth has been driven by the rise of smartphones, the development of mobile internet, and the advent of several operating systems including the open-source Android mobile operating system.
