Road to HIFest 2026: Winning Innovations from AfyaFest 2025

Category

Health Innovation Festival

Country

Ghana

Kenya

Pillar

Health Entrepreneurship

Tag

Health Entrepreneurship

This year’s Health Innovation Festival marks an exciting new chapter in an initiative that began as the Health Entrepreneurship Hackathon, organized by African Leadership University as part of the Africa Health Collaborative (AHC) in Rwanda in 2024.

Following the success of the inaugural event, the hackathon evolved into a network-wide initiative under the Health Entrepreneurship Pillar, bringing together young innovators from across the partnership ecosystem to connect, learn, and collaborate with peers, mentors, and industry experts.

In 2025, this vision was expanded further when Amref Health Africa hosted the joint hackathon, AfyaFest, in Kenya. For the first time, all AHC partners collectively mobilized resources, expertise, and entrepreneurial talent to create a collaborative platform for young health innovators. The initiative sought to bridge the gap between the ambitions of emerging health entrepreneurs and their access to the knowledge, networks, mentorship, and resources needed to grow their ideas.

The event brought together 300 participants from 15 African countries over three days. Fifty-four African-led startups showcased transformative ideas and working solutions across four key categories: Maternal and Child Health, Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and Mental Health, Climate and Health, and Global Health Security.

As preparations begin for the third edition of the festival in Accra, Ghana, this June, jointly hosted by Ashesi University and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), we celebrate the 2025 winning innovators advancing equitable primary healthcare access across the continent.

Maternal and Child Health Category

Winner: Safe Motherhood Alliance | Founder: Muzalema Mwanza | Country: Zambia

Muzalema’s innovation is driven by a vision where every expectant mother experiences a safe and dignified childbirth, supported by quality care and essential hygiene. Expectant mothers in rural areas strive for healthy deliveries but often face systemic challenges including the high cost of sterilized delivery materials.

Leveraging her engineering background, she established the Safe Motherhood Alliance, where she develops affordable tools such as 3D-printed umbilical cord clamps and sanitary pads made from locally sourced materials like banana fiber. By partnering with traditional birth attendants as trusted distribution agents, the venture helps expand access to safe community-centered maternal care.

Read more about Safe Motherhood Alliance 

Climate and Health Category

Winner: Foi Science | Founder: Nomahlubi Nompunga | Country: South Africa

Nomahlubi identified a dual challenge: limited access to affordable, high-tech medical solutions alongside growing environmental waste and industrial byproducts in underserved communities. Dedicated to building a sustainable health ecosystem that combines environmental stewardship with community healing, she developed a patented process to extract biopolymers from discarded fish scales and eggshells and transform them into active ingredients that support wound healing. Foi Science, her venture, has also scaled its operations to formulate organic personal care products, industrial-strength detergents, and R&D technical services.

Read more about Foi Science 

Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) Category

Winner: WeCure Pharmacy | Founder: Dumisani Nkunika | Country: Zambia

Dumisani believes individuals managing chronic illnesses deserve seamless, consistent, and reliable access to life-sustaining medications to lead fulfilling lives.

He launched WeCure, Zambia’s leading online pharmacy, building a tech-driven hybrid model. By merging the trust of a physical pharmacy with the convenience of an online store, his team allows individuals to easily order medications, baby products, and AgroVet supplies from anywhere. WeCure is improving access to essential healthcare products and making chronic disease management more convenient for communities across Zambia.

Read more about WeCure Pharmacy 

Global Health Security Category

Winner: Ultrateb | Founder: Mohamed Dabees | Country: Egypt

Mohamed observed that clinics and hospitals are eager to serve their patients but often face challenges and vulnerabilities within the healthcare supply chain. Committed to ensuring that healthcare providers are never forced to pause their life-saving work due to a lack of essential supplies, he built Ultrateb – a robust B2B e-commerce platform that connects medical vendors directly with healthcare providers. This innovation helps make vital medical supplies more accessible, reliable, and efficient for healthcare providers.

Read more about Ultrateb 

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Each of these winning innovations received $6,000 in seed funding, exposure to investors, and ongoing strategic support to help scale their solutions. In addition, the People’s Choice award of $1,000 was presented to L-Guard, a finalist in the Global Health Security category. L-Guard developed a transport “black box” system that automatically shares a vehicle’s location and alerts nearby hospitals during emergencies, helping improve emergency response and continuity of care.

As we look ahead to Accra in June 2026, we invite you to join us—not only as observers, but as partners supporting a new generation of innovators shaping the future of healthcare across Africa.

Find out more about the Health Innovation Festival here. 

Watch the 2025 Pitches