By Solomon Gumah, GNA
Tamale, Oct 30, GNA – The StartUp Lab, an accelerator programme, has organised a hackathon competition in Tamale to promote the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered solutions in Ghana.
The initiative, supported by the Government of the Republic of Korea through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) with MEST Africa as the implementing partner, was intended to improve maternal, newborn and child healthcare in underserved communities in Northern Ghana.
The three-day StartUp Lab Hackathon 2026 was under the theme: “AI for Nurturing Care: Accelerating Maternal, Newborn and Under-5 Survival in Northern Ghana”.
It brought together young innovators to develop practical, affordable and locally relevant technological solutions to community-level healthcare challenges.
It was also to harness young people’s creativity and technical expertise to develop AI-assisted tools to strengthen community health services, improve caregiver support and facilitate the early identification of maternal and child health risks.
At the end of the competition, Team Laafia emerged as the overall winner with an offline-first mobile application designed to help Community Health Officers prioritise home visits to pregnant women, newborns and children under five requiring attention.
Team Laafi placed second with an offline-first Android application designed to improve referrals for maternal and newborn care, while NurtureAI took third place with an AI-powered community health platform to help frontline health workers identify and respond to health risks before they developed into emergencies.
MamaVR AI was also recognised for its offline-first pregnancy risk prediction and decision-support platform, which was designed to help Community Health Officers identify pregnant women at risk of delivering outside health facilities or experiencing pregnancy complications.
Dr Peter Gyamfi Kwarteng, the Chief of Field Office for UNICEF in Tamale, said the hackathon formed part of the organisation’s efforts to equip young people with the skills, mentorship and opportunities needed to develop solutions to pressing development challenges.
He indicated that with support from KOICA, UNICEF was working with MEST Africa to help young innovators transform their ideas into practical solutions capable of improving the well-being of children and communities.
Dr Kwarteng said the hackathon was the second of its kind organised in Tamale following an earlier edition that focused on safely managed sanitation.
He said the programme provided an enabling environment for young innovators to receive technical guidance from experts, refine their ideas and develop solutions to address real-life challenges.
He said: “We do not want to bring solutions that do not fit into the context where we live. Having these community-informed solutions would better enable us to serve our people here in Ghana.”
Dr Kwarteng, who also touched on the selection process, said the criteria were designed to promote equitable opportunities and ensure that the innovations reflected the experiences and needs of local communities.
He explained that applicants were encouraged to form teams of two or three members with the selection criteria requiring representation from Northern Ghana, the participation of a female member and experience in the University for Development Studies (UDS) Third Trimester Field Practical Programme (TTFPP).
Dr Kwarteng said UNICEF had recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the University for Development Studies making the participation of students with community field experience particularly relevant to the initiative.
He said the ultimate beneficiaries would be children in Ghana particularly those facing challenges accessing quality maternal, newborn and child healthcare, and expressed hope that the innovations would progress beyond the competition to implementation, to enable health workers to identify vulnerable mothers and children earlier and provide timely interventions.
Dr Zakaria Adam, a Public Health Physician Specialist with the Ghana Health Service and Acting Deputy Director of Public Health for the Upper East Region, commended the participating teams for developing solutions to address practical challenges in maternal and child healthcare.
He said integrating technology into healthcare delivery was becoming increasingly important as health workers faced heavy workloads and personnel shortages.
He explained that AI-assisted tools could help health workers track scheduled follow-ups, identify clients requiring specific interventions and use available patient information to support clinical decision-making.
Mr Gerhard Malah, Senior Manager of MESTx at MEST Africa said the solutions demonstrated the potential of AI to strengthen community-based healthcare by helping frontline workers prioritise patients, track referrals and identify people requiring follow-up care.
He said successful implementation would require collaboration with health authorities, adequate technological infrastructure, reliable data, appropriate safeguards for patient information and sustained support for the innovators.
The StartUp Lab is a six-month accelerator programme for tech-enabled startups developing solutions for children and adolescents in Ghana.
Since 2019, it has supported more than 122 early- and -growth-stage social impact ventures, reaching over 250,000 children, adolescents and young people across Ghana with KOICA investing about US$2.2 million in the initiative.
GNA
Edited by Eric K. Amoh/Benjamin Mensah
Reporter: Solomon Gumah
Email address: [email protected]