Nigerian E-Health Startup Mobicure Earns Expo Live Grant

Mobicure, creator of OMOMI application has been given an Expo Live grant by organizers of the next edition of World Expo due to be held in Dubai in 2020, for its application, which aids pregnant women and parents of children under five- years old keep an eye on the health of their children from home.

The Expo 2020 Dubai themed ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’, is being organized with ambition to create a transformative World Expo by showcasing global innovations to the region and beyond and to engage the global community.

It also seeks to drive advancements and innovative solutions in the fields of Opportunity, Mobility and Sustainability, leaving behind a strong social and economic legacy.

The Expo will grant up to US$100,000 per initiative for its Innovation Impact Grant Programme – to be made available increasingly based on growth and outcomes.

Nigerian e-health startup Mobicure was awarded the grant for OMOMI, a mobile platform  that enables mothers to easily monitor their children’s health, as well as providing access to life-saving maternal and child health information plus medical expertise just at a touch of a button.

The service launched in Benin City in 2015 currently boasts of  of 31,000 users with over 4,000 active users monthly, and has witnessed a 450 per cent rise in user engagement over the last nine months.

The funding from the Expo Live programme will help it reach even more families. Expo 2020 Dubai’s Expo Live programme has an allocation of US$100 million to back projects that offer creative solutions to pressing challenges that impact people’s lives.

Owobu Emmanuel Osayi, a doctor and co-founder of OMOMI disclosed that OMOMI was inspired by painful memories.

He said, “While I was a medical doctor, I had a very painful experience. A young mother came into the emergency room crying and holding a baby.

“Looking at the baby, I knew he was severely dehydrated, and looking into his history, I saw he had been suffering from diarrhoea for some time, so I asked the mother why she took so long to bring him into the hospital. She said she thought she could wait until the morning.”

Though attempts were made to resuscitate the baby and give him fluids, he eventually died.

“The mother, crying, picked up her phone and called her family members. I asked her why she hadn’t used her phone to get information or help online, and she said she didn’t know how; she didn’t have a platform to help her do that,” Osayi said.

“A few months later a friend called and told me about a very similar situation. We talked and decided we needed to find a solution.”

While commenting on the grant he said the Expo Live grant would help Mobicure further build on the OMOMI platform, providing more features and health information, as well as bring it to the attention of more parents in Sub-Saharan Africa.