She’s transforming access to health care, and she’s only 20 years old
Faridah Umutoni ‘18
When this year’s national Ms Geek competition took place in Kigali, it was with Akilah’s very own Faridah Umutoni as one of the finalists.
On April 30th, Faridah Umotoni, a first-year student at Akilah, took the stage at the annual Ms Geek competition with her Meet The Doctor website and mobile application. Nervous as she was, she was determined to show the jury and the audience how her project could transform access to health care for people in — especially rural — Rwanda.
Ms Geek Rwanda is an annual competition organized by the organization Girls in ICT in collaboration with Ministry of Youth & ICT to inspire female students to design solutions to societal issues through technology and innovation. The broader aim of the competition is to build confidence among girls and young women to join careers within tech, math, engineering and science.
It was a meeting with a representative from Girls in ICT in Akilah’s IT Club, of which Faridah is an engaged member, that sparked the project that would take her to the finals of Ms Geek 2016.
Faridah (pictured right) with her fellow Ms Geek finalists and First Lady Jeannette Kagame
“We were asked to develop ideas that could solve problems within four sectors: health, security, service delivery and finance. I wanted to focus on health and create something unique that could solve people’s main problems of distance, time and resources at the same time,” explains Faridah between classes at the Akilah campus.
Meet The Doctor
This laid the foundation for Meet The Doctor, a website and mobile app to access prescriptions for mild medical cases without having to wait for hours at the doctor’s office. Using their phones or computers, patients can register their symptoms, personal information and insurance policy into a simple form. Through the application, this information will go straight to the doctor’s database from which he can prescribe medication or suggest further treatment and send it back on an SMS. For those who are unable to read or write, the application will use Interactive Voice Response, enabling to give and receive information through voice-recordings and multiple choice. If implemented in health facilities, hospitals and pharmacies Meet The Doctor could significantly save time and resources for both patients and health facilities.
It was her own family’s struggle to access health care that gave the idea for Meet The Doctor.
“I used to see how my mother would suffer. When I left for school my mum was alone with my younger sister in our village. When my mum got sick, the hospital was too far for my sister to take her there — she’s only 9. Eventually I had to leave school so I could go home and take care of them. We spend so much time travelling to the hospital and then waiting for hours to see the doctor. And when it’s finally your turn, the consultation often only takes a few minutes. It feels like such a waste of everyone’s time. It inspired me to do something,” Faridah explains.
Through support from Akilah’s IT instructor, Faustin Soroncho, Faridah developed the idea for Meet The Doctor.
“He helped me to keep developing the idea, and I tried out a lot of different things before the project was strong enough. When I presented him with the website and mobile app, he said yes — this is perfect.”
Going Public
Making it to the finals of Ms Geek was a dream come true for Faridah, who has been passionate about technology for a long as she can remember.
“I would like to be a programmer, that’s my dream. Technology can help people with so many things, not least in terms of saving time, distance and money. I get a lot of inspiration from hackers, because they really know everything — they get all of their information through codes. I want to know everything, too.”
Participating in the Ms Geek competition is not just about technological excellence. The finalists need to show their business skills and master public speaking and project pitching in order to woo the judges and audience. And for Faridah, making it to the finals was a massive confidence boost.
“I’m only in my first year, so I didn’t have very much self-confidence before. But now I’m thinking: if others can do it, why not me?”
After taking home an impressive fourth place in Ms Geek, the work has just started for Faridah, who now needs to make the project come to life.
“Before it was just an idea, but now I need to make it happen. I will need a lot of support — I started developing the website but I need better equipment. And I need to form partnerships with hospitals, pharmacies and insurance companies to develop the database and implement the system.”
The amount of work it requires to set up a project of this size would discourage most 20-year old students. But not Faridah.