PedalTap was one of Africa’s Brightest Innovator at the Next Einstein Forum Global Gathering 2018 at Radisson Blu Hotel & Convention Centre, Kigali, Rwanda on 27th March, 2018. The Forum took place from 26th to 28th March, 2018.

As one of the winners of the Johnson &Johnson Africa Innovation Award, Pedal Tap participated in the session titled “discovering Africa’s Brightest Innovators together with 9 other African innovators that included the other winners of the Johnson & Johnson Africa Innovation award. This session was moderated by Michelle Gregory, Vice-President of Content and Innovation, Elsevier.

The session presented 10 Africa’s innovators under 42 who shared about their innovations in 4 minutes each. These included Mr. Arthur Zang, CardioPad, Ms. Temie Giwa-Tubosun, Life Bank, Mr. Brian Turyabagye, MamaOpe, Dr. Dougbeh Christopher Nyan, The Nyan Test, Cedric Atangana, CEO of Infinity Space, Builder of WeCashUp, Mahmud Johnson, Founder and CEO of J-Palm Liberia, Grâce-Françoise Nibizi, Founder, SaCoDé & Ageteka Project, Grace Nakibaala, Founder and CEO Pedal Tap, Dr. Ngalula Sandrine Mubenga, Founder and CEO, SMIN Power Group, Patrick Nsenga Buchana, CEO of AC Group Ltd. ‘It was great and rich experience learning from each other’ noted Grace Nakibaala.

We each were given 4 minutes to pitch our innovations to the congregation. We were introduced by the moderator highlighting our innovations and individual profiles. The overview of the session was, “Africa has the youngest population in the World and is expected to have half a billion-young people aged 25 years old and less by 2055. While African countries are on the quest to become a knowledge led economy, it is important to involve young people into the development of their countries, particularly in driving innovation.” At the end of the pitches we all responded to several questions from the moderator and the congregation at large on scalability, impact, other projects in the pipeline, R&D: Product improvement, among others.

Pedal Tap also participated in a side event guided by the theme: What innovation looks like: Conversation in the co-laboratory with Africa Innovation Award winners facilitated by the Johnson and Johnson team. During this session, I shared the Pedal Tap journey before and after winning the Johnson and Johnson Africa Innovation Award together with the other 2 winners.  We were also able to exhibit the Pedal Tap in the Johnson and Johnson room that was hosting the side events for Johnson and Johnson.

It was an honour sharing my work with all the attendees of the next Einstein Forum Global Gathering 2018. I also learnt from the other 9 innovators especially from those that were producing and selling their products in their own countries. We were also able to get connections with potential customers and partners that we would work with to scale the Pedal Tap product, an additional benefit to the Pedal Tap team.

Thank you, Johnson and Johnson team, for this opportunity that you gave the PedalTap team to be part of this scientific gathering. The team learnt a lot of other possible ways to move this innovation forth from the different presentations and sharing experiences and learnings with other change makers around Africa and the whole world. It was also a good time for the team to reflect on our journey and lay out solid goals on how to grow moving forward.

Details about the 10 innovations which participated in this forum

• Cardiopad: A touch-screen heart monitoring device, invented by a Cameroonian entrepreneur Arthur Zang records a patient’s heart activity via Bluetooth-connected electrodes. It sends a digitized electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) to a national healthcare center for a cardiologist to evaluate and return a diagnosis to the patient. The whole process takes less than 20 minutes and the doctor and patient never have to interact.
• LifeBank: A healthcare supply chain engine that helps hospitals discover essential medical suppliers and delivers them in the right condition and on time.
• MamaOpe:A bio-medical smart jacket that helps doctors identify Pneumonia at a faster rate with increased accuracy so as to considerably reduce the under-five child mortality rate, and increase the productivity of health workers.
• Nyan Test: A rapid multiplex test that detects and identifies multiple infections in less than an hour.
• WeCashUp: WeCashUp is a Universal Payment Platform that implements a Financial Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain to enable digital companies worldwide to accept Cash, Mobile Money, Bank Mobile Wallets, Cards and Cryptocurrency payments online via a single API integration.
• J-Palm Libera: Provides access to improved processing machinery for smallholder oil palm farmers and has created a market for previously wasted palm kernels. J-Palm Liberia processes the palm kernels into a range of products including Kernel Fresh (organic moisturizer and hair conditioner made of virgin cold-pressed palm kernel oil).
• SaCoDé & Ageteka Project: SaCoDe is the only organisation in Burundi that makes reusable and washable menstrual pads, and the only organisation in Africa that makes them wearable with or without underwear.
• Pedal Tap:A retrofittable, affordable, hands-free, foot-operated water dispensing system.  The PedalTap is designed to reduce the growth and frequency of potent and infectious diseases spread at water points in public spaces and is currently being piloted at Uganda’s National Referral Hospital, in public schools, toilets and offices.
• SMIN Power Group:A company that designs and installs renewable energy systems in USA and DRC.
• Tap n Go: Tap n Go was created by AC Group Ltd, a company providing smart transport solutions like for public transportation in Kigali, Yaoundé, Douala and expanding to other cities in Africa. Within 2 years of operation, AC Group has been able to digitize public transport payment and enabled bus operators in Kigali to recover almost 30% of their revenues.

‘Solutions through innovation’

By; Grace Nakibaala, Founder and CEO Pedal Tap