From left: Josephat, Elias, Grace and Brian after being announced winners of the competition
Team Siren, consisting of six fourth-year Bachelor of Science in Information Technology students proved their innovation knack by emerging winners in the Red Bull Basement National Competition bagging USD 1000.
Elias Ngugi Kariuki, Brian Murithi, Grace Kyalo, Josephat Wambugu, Timothy Kimani and Dennison Mutinda competed against 20 teams at the National level. They will now represent the country in the global competition in Istanbul, Turkey, December 13-16, 2021.
The sextet innovation, dubbed Siren, seeks to improve ambulance response time and increase the availability of emergency services support.
Brian attests that despite the increase in ambulatory services availed by the county governments and private health practitioners, response services have remained poor.
“Response services remain poor due to a myriad of reasons including lack of centralized communication and dispatch, inadequate geo-location services and un-availability of information and emergency notifications services,” said Elias.
Due to this, the team in consultation with their counterparts in Geospatial Engineering and Public Health developed an app that primarily connects patients in dire need of medical health care with the nearest health care workers, ambulances and health facilities.
“If a victim is using a smartphone, we automatically detect their location and summon the nearest ambulance to them and for those with simple phones their network will be triangulated to them,” explains Brian.
The app also has a network of medics and during an emergency, the nearest medic to the patient is automatically summoned by the victim in need right before an ambulance reaches the patient.
A dream that began at a Health Informatics Governance and Data Analytics (HIGDA) Hackathon under the banner Innovation for Universal Healthcare Delivery has seen the Siren innovation come to fruition.
“The USD 1000 will enable us improve our application and get it on web, android and IOS. With this, I am confident that we will improve Emergency Medical Services in the country,” said Elias.
Elias (left) and Brian
HIGDA Coordinator, Dr. Reuben Thuo said he was immensely proud of the team and wished them all the best in Istanbul.
“In this era of digital revolution, we are witnessing a powerful combination of data and technology innovations that catalyzes universal health coverage for all,” said Dr. Thuo who is also the Dean, School of Medicine.
He further encouraged more students to innovate in the area of health to accelerate the deployment of technology to deliver real impact and scale up health systems.
Red Bull Basement empowers student innovators to drive positive change through tech solutions. Team Siren will compete against 43 national finalists. Over the course of five weeks, the team will receive workspace, mentorship and micro-funding to kick-start their idea.