The Kampala-based company MamaOpe Medicals was honored with the Wholistic World Innovation Trophy 2024.

The Kampala-based company MamaOpe Medicals and its co-founder and CEO, Olivia Koburongo, were honored with the Wholistic World Innovation Trophy 2024. The exclusive global award, which recognizes technological and social innovations that contribute to the sustainable improvement of our societies, was presented for the fourth time last night as part of the DEXTForce Festival in Barcelona. The event took place at the impressive Casa Llotja del Mar, where the winner and the new artwork by the internationally renowned Belgian-German artist Ulrike Bolenz were presented to the public.

The jury justified its decision as follows: “MamaOpe Medicals is a company founded in Uganda in 2015 that develops devices and software to improve access to high-quality healthcare in resource-limited regions and give people a fair chance at life. The company has set itself the task of improving the detection and treatment of respiratory infections with the help of simple and intuitive digital tools.

For this reason, the jury unanimously decided in its final meeting in 2024 to award the Wholistic World Innovation Trophy 2023 to this company, CEO Olivia Koburongo, and the founding team.” For the first time in the history of the award, the winner comes from Africa, and two of the three nominees on the shortlist also came from this continent, highlighting Africa's impressive potential.

Olivia Koburongo said: “I would like to sincerely thank everyone for this incredible honor. Receiving this award for our efforts to innovate the healthcare system is an encouraging experience. Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has supported me on this journey: my family, my team, and everyone who supports our shared mission.”

The Wholistic World Innovation Trophy is an initiative of the Diplomatic World Institute in Brussels. Previous winners include Mikaela Jade and the Australian indigenous Edu-Tech company InDigital, Chris Sheldrick and the innovative localization approach of What3Words from London, and Marcus Daws, an engineer based in Canberra who extracts CO2 from the air with MCi Carbon to use it as a building material.