There were wild jubilations by two young innovators at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra who had beaten contestants eight months of scientific innovation and entrepreneurial training programme in the UK.

It was organised by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

South Africa’s Edmund Wessels and Uganda’s Anatoli Kirigwajjo put up an impressive body of work that compelled judges to declare the two innovators as joint winners of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation for the first time.

Each of them went home with a whooping  £25,000 as their prize.

Edmund Wessels, a biomedical engineer and CEO of Flexigin is the second South African to take home the award, won with a novel device for women’s reproductive health while his co-winner Kirigwajjo Anatoli is a Ugandan electrical engineer and CEO of Yunga.

He happens to be the second Ugandan to win the award, and entered the contest with a low-cost digital security network that connects neighbours and the police.

Kirigwajj’s Yunga is a local digital security network that connects neighbours to each other and police within a 20-kilometre radius through a physical device, smartphone app or SMS service, providing security at low cost.

Nearly 1,000 households in 30 communities across central Uganda are already on the YUNGA network, which has successfully prevented around 130 break-ins and related crimes.

The team is aiming to connect 32,000 households across Uganda in the next two years.

“I developed YUNGA after losing USD 1,300 worth of assets in a break-in, with little chance of the thieves being caught. We hope that with our household networks, communities will become harder targets for criminals. This will ensure safety, which in turn will create the space for economic activities to thrive,” says Kirigwajjo.

He and his co-founders, Kawesa Nasser and Kasoma Fredrick, say that winning the Africa Prize will give their business exposure in new markets across Africa.

“It will open the door to additional resources such as investments and stakeholder partnerships. The prize money will allow us to add more than 1,000 households to the YUNGA network, with a focus on women-led homes, which are more vulnerable to crime in low-resource settings. This is an invaluable opportunity in our efforts to scale up,” adds Kirigwajjo.

In the Yunga network, communities are divided into networks of 10 to 30 households, each receiving a device connected to a local area network.

 In cases of emergency, pressing a button sets off a loud alarm on all devices connected to the network, and sends a message with the victim’s details to other devices, prompting a community response.

 The system includes motion sensors for when users leave their homes or businesses.

YUNGA also operates in areas with no internet through a long-range wide area network. YUNGA reduces response times by hours to the shortest time possible for members of the network to reach someone in danger.

“YUNGA revolutionises communication in low-resource areas, providing a digital network for swift and efficient responses to crimes, enhancing safety for entire communities. YUNGA aims to reach more than 30,000 households and 150,000 individuals by 2025,” says Kirigwajjo.

However, Edmund Wessels’s  FlexiGyn is a battery-powered, portable handheld device that enables gynaecologists to diagnose and treat women’s uterine problems without anaesthetic or expensive equipment.

It aims to increase women’s access to reproductive healthcare, particularly in remote areas.

Typical hysteroscopy systems are rigid, leading to high levels of patient discomfort, requiring bulky additional equipment for visualisation.

 The innovative FlexiGyn features a flexible scope with built-in light and camera, offering a more comfortable and efficient experience for both patients and healthcare providers.

FlexiGyn is portable, intuitive and user-friendly, allowing gynaecologists to offer quality screenings and timely interventions regardless of the patient’s location or lack of medical infrastructure.

In addition to the hardware, Wessels and his team are developing integrated software solutions that seamlessly connect the FlexiGyn device with existing medical practice systems, including obstetricians and gynaecologists to general practitioners, radically increasing the frequency of diagnoses. Streamlining patient scheduling, electronic health record synchronisation and AI-assisted diagnosis, this improved efficiency and collaboration enables healthcare professionals to diagnose and treat patients more frequently, enhancing the overall quality of care.

Two Ghanaians who made it to the top stage were honoured. They are: Obed Zar, CEO of Aquaset, who presented a smart water management system that monitors water levels in boreholes and water tanks, regulating the rate at which water is pumped and preventing pump breakdowns and water waste.

The other is Emmanuel Ofori Devi, CEO of MEDBOX Ghana also entered a  healthcare monitoring system that records a patient’s vital signs and transmits them to doctors who then provide remote medical advice.

The two other finalists, who each receive £10,000, are Chukwuemeka from Nigeria is the CEO of  Eze, an e-mobility service that converts gas-powered three-wheel motorbikes to run on batteries, saving up to 60% on running costs.

Gibson Kawago of Tanzania, CEO of WAGA PAWA Pack, a power pack made with recycled laptop batteries to provide reliable and affordable power for electric bikes, power banks, solar lights, businesses and homes.

The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK, is Africa’s biggest prize dedicated to supporting and upscaling engineering innovation and, after nine years, has a proven track record of identifying successful engineering entrepreneurs.

Since 2014, the programme has supported more than 130 entrepreneurs across 20 African countries with a rigorous business training programme and lifelong project support through the Africa Prize alumni network.

 More than 70% of the alumni’s engineering and technology businesses now generate revenue.

Between them, the Africa Prize alumni have raised more than USD 14 million in grants and equity funding and created more than 3,600 jobs, almost half of them for women.

This year’s 15 shortlisted Africa Prize entrepreneurs, from 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, received eight months of training and tailored mentoring including support with developing business plans, recruitment, IP protection, financing and commercialisation.

The Africa Prize also promotes and connects the shortlisted entrepreneurs to individuals and networks around the world who can accelerate their business and provide support with technology development – from fellow entrepreneurs and mentors to potential investors and suppliers.

In addition to the Africa Prize, the remaining 11 innovators from the 2023 shortlist competed for the One to Watch Prize. They presented their innovations to a live audience who voted for the pitch that showed the most potential for impact. Tolulope Olukokun was selected as the winner of the Africa Prize’s One-to-Watch Award of £5,000.

This Award recognises the potential of Olukokun innovation, an electric cargo bike with a battery-powered fridge to help Nigeria’s smallholder farmers get fresh food crops to market. The profiles and pitch decks of the 15 engineers comprising the 2023 cohort can be viewed here.

The other 11 candidates shortlisted for the 2023 Africa Prize were: 

Affordable AMD Solution, Boitumelo Nkatlo, South Africa – A technology to treat acid mine drainage (AMD), which uses industrial waste to recycle contaminated water for human consumption.

Arobot, Cristovão Cacombe, Angola – A robotics learning tool for children that can be assembled and programmed to perform specific tasks.

Digital Aquaponics, Flavien Kouatcha Simo, Cameroon – A portable fish farm that uses fish waste as a fertiliser to produce organic vegetables, enabling small-scale farmers to increase production.

Multi-Purpose Earth Brick Machine, Fikru Gebre Dikumbab, Ethiopia – A manually-operated portable machine to make interlocking compressed earth bricks using 90%-95% soil and 5%-10% cement.

ProbiGal, Dr Deon Neveling, South Africa – A host-specific multi-strain probiotic designed to promote gut health and prevent bacterial infections in chickens, reducing the need for antibiotics.

Smart Green Stove, Margaret Yainkain Mansaray, Sierra Leone – An efficient non-electric cooking device designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and health risks, slashing energy use by 70%.

Smart Water Tech, Allen Chafa, Zimbabwe – A real time water quality monitoring and control system to address water borne diseases.

ThinkBikes CoolMAX, Tolulope Olukokun, Nigeria – An electric cargo bike with a battery powered fridge to help Nigeria’s smallholder farmers get fresh food crops to market.

Waste-to-Wealth Enhancer, Cletus Ekpoh, Nigeria – A four-part recycling system to help informal waste collectors.

ore information can be found

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