The Ugandan Academy for Health Innovation and Impact has announced the second edition of the Health Innovations Conference which will take place on March 19 and 20 at the Kampala Serena Hotel.
Organized with support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Clarke Group, CryptoSavannah, Case Hospital, Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Andela Uganda and Janssen, the Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson and Johnson — the event will see stakeholders in the health sector and innovators present and share ideas on how to improve health services in Uganda, focusing mainly on HIV and TB.
The inaugural Health Innovations conference was held in March 2018 and it was attended by government officials, medical professionals, researchers, students, IT professionals and the media, among others.
The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Elioda Tumwesigye also attended and participants discussed the application of blockchain in the improving health services.
For this year’s edition, the speakers will include Kwame Rugunda, chairman Blockchain Association Uganda; Dr. Ian Clarke, chairman Clarke Group; Mike Tartakovsky, chief executive officer, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and Carol Kyozira, Ag. Assistant Commissioner (DHI), Ministry of Health (MOH).
The state Minister for Health Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng will also attend.
This year’s theme is “Sustainable Health for all: Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution” which generally focuses on how various aspects of new, old, high and low-tech can effectively be used to improve health.
It will cover four areas, namely: accelerating innovations into practice; no people left behind-‘Lo-tech and the last mile; people, processes and products; arts for health and social change.
Launch of bioinformatics unit in Uganda
Officials will also take time to launch a bioinformatics unit in Uganda funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
This unit is provisionally named the African Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics (ACE).
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First of its kind in the region and based at the IDI Makerere University premises, the ACE will be a center for computational biology and big data analysis.
Hackathon
To showcase how technology can be used for sustainable health for all, Andela Uganda has organized public Hackathon around “Technology or all, no one left behind”.
The IDI-Andela Health Hackathon (#AndelaIDIHealthHack) will be held at the Serena Hotel for 2 days.
It will bring together techies, from both Andela and the wider tech ecosystem.
The aim of #AndelaIDIHealthHack in the country is to create mobile-based solutions around sustainable health for all; with the top 3 teams receiving grant writing support from the IDI team and a cash prize.
To participate in the hackathon, register online here.
The Ugandan Academy for Health Innovation and Impact, which is supervised by the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), was established in 2015 from an MoU between Ministry of Health, Infectious Diseases Institute, Janssen, the Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson and the Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust.
The Ugandan Academy’s core function is to improve health outcomes for people living with or affected by HIV and TB through innovations in clinical care, capacity building, system strengthening, and research, which inform policy and practice.
Tickets to the event are being sold at US$100 (about Shs370,000) and you can buy one here.
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