Venture Spotlight: SnooCODERED

The Africa Health Collaborative, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, will be welcoming the Health Entrepreneurship (HENT) African Impact Challenge’s second cohort for their upcoming visit to Toronto, where they will continue their implementation phase through activities targeting business development, expanding entrepreneurial networks, and facilitating exposure to potential investors.

The University of Toronto’s Health Collaborative Internal Communications Working Group caught up with the ventures to learn more about the origins of their companies, what they’ve learned to date, and what is coming up next…

Category: Spotlight
Country: Ghana
Pillar: Health Entrepreneurship
Tags: African Impact Challenge; Health Entrepreneurship; Venture Spotlight

SnooCODERED

As a young intern at a bank in Accra, Ghana, Sesinam Dagadu was confronted with the lack of a formal addressing system which made it difficult for clients with low literacy levels to set up bank accounts thus leaving them with the option to hand-draw detailed maps of their homes. Challenged by this, Dagadu created SnooCODE, a digital addressing system, which has obtained Prior Art as the first ‘postal code system and method’ for smartphones.

In the wake of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation (ANDI) described SnooCODE as “a key technology in providing timely emergency care across Africa”. This inspired Dagadu to launch SnooCODERED, a product line specifically for healthcare.

SnooCODERED aims to solve the problem of inadequate healthcare infrastructure (systems, facilities and human resources) in Africa. It is doing this by providing a suite of cost-effective mobile healthcare logistics applications that democratize access to the ambulance or first aid response, facilitate the delivery of medical supplies to diverse populations, and improve contact tracing and epidemiological modelling. SnooCODERED provides an offline mobile emergency control centre that enables first responders to determine, notify, and confirm the closest available, most appropriate health assets (ambulance stations, hospitals, pharmacies and individual doctors) to an emergency, and navigate to and from the scene. The system includes a drone control module that allows anybody to deliver medical supplies to remote areas without knowing how to fly a drone – this is possible by entering the simple 6-digit SnooCODE address for the drone’s destination.

The SnooCODERED team is integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with the mobile control centre to give context-appropriate first aid instructions and primary health advice.

What is the accomplishment to date that your team is most proud of?
“The SnooCODERED team is integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with the mobile control centre to give context-appropriate first aid instructions and primary health advice.”

If you could give advice to another founder getting started, what would that be?

“ Be patient.”

Looking ahead, SnooCODERED is evolving from a tablet/smartphone emergency control centre into a modular solution that can be assembled and used in four different applications: stationary emergency call centres, mobile EMTs (in ambulance vehicles), stationary primary e-healthcare outposts, and mobile clinics. Each application has three main components in common: satellite internet, a mobile power source, and a tablet, with the SnooCODERED Control Centre (SRCC) now integrated with AI for quick decision support and triaging. SnooCODERED is currently working on the AI integration, after which it will complete its modular solution and go to market.