Ugandan entrepreneur Brian Turyabagye has won a special Pitch@Palace Africa event hosted by HRH The Duke of York at St James’s Palace in London.
The Prince Andrew Charitable Trust set up Pitch@Palace to support His Royal Highness’s work with entrepreneurs and to guide, help and connect them with potential supporters.
This special edition of the event featured the contenders for this year’s Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Prize, and was won by 24-year-old Turyabagye for his invention, Mama-Ope.
Mama Ope is a biomedical smart jacket that helps doctors identify pneumonia faster and more accurately.
“27,000 Ugandan children die annually from pneumonia, often because the disease is misdiagnosed,” said Turyabagye. “With Mama-Ope, we can reduce the margin for human error and help doctors make faster, more accurate diagnoses.”
Alex Makalliwa, 26, an aeronautical engineering lecturer from Kenya, came second with his design for a sustainable, electric Tuk-Tuk, with 27-year-old Nigerian Godwin Benson coming third with his business Tuteria, a web-based platform that links students with expert tutors in their area.
Fifteen engineering entrepreneurs from across Sub-Saharan Africa presented their innovations and business plans to an invited audience who picked their favourites.
“As Pitch@Palace expands around the world I am determined to encourage ambitious and talented Sub-Saharan African entrepreneurs, many of them engineers from all disciplines, to make use of their skills to develop scalable solutions to local challenges,” said HRH The Duke of York.
