Education
Niger makes Africa Prize history as local engineer wins £50,000 for medical innovation – EnviroNews
– Advertisement –
Nigerien innovator, Mamane Kabirou Ousseini, has been named the winner of the 2026 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, Africa’s biggest engineering prize.
Delivered by the Royal Academy of Engineering and part funded by the UK Government’s International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF), the £50,000 award was presented to Mr. Ousseini at a ceremony hosted by former professional rugby union player and entrepreneur, Bryan Habana, to support development of his medical monitoring platform, Likita Care.
The first engineer from Niger both to participate in and win the Africa Prize, Ousseini, who is CEO and Co-founder of Likita Care, said: “Winning the Africa Prize is a dream come true. We started this project five years ago, and to see how far we’ve come and receive this recognition today means more than words can express.”
While working on the maintenance and repair of medical equipment in Niger’s hospitals, Mamane repeatedly saw imported monitoring devices fall out of service because spare parts and specialist support were difficult to access locally. In healthcare facilities already operating with limited resources, this could leave staff without reliable equipment to monitor patients.
He co-founded Likita Care to provide healthcare workers with locally manufactured monitoring technology that can be maintained and repaired in Niger.
Likita Care is an integrated medical monitoring platform combining connected hardware, clinical software and local digital manufacturing. Its devices support patient, cardiac and prenatal monitoring, while a central dashboard allows healthcare workers to monitor multiple patients at once and an embedded AI module helps interpret vital signs in real time. More than 70 monitoring units have been produced and deployed in Niger, with the system now used across five medical centres after being tested with more than 100 patients and over 4,000 collected data points.
With the £50,000 prize, Mamane plans to commercialise Likita Care in Niger and prepare for expansion into neighbouring West African markets.
The three runner-up innovations, each receiving £10,000 to support their development, were:
- 1. Pee-Cycling, by Dyllon Randall (South Africa): a modular urine-to-fertiliser recovery system that conserves potable water, recovers valuable nutrients and reduces reliance on imported fertiliser. A full-scale unit can process up to 3,000 litres of urine a day. For every 1,000 litres of undiluted urine processed, it produces around 300 litres of liquid fertiliser and 700 litres of treated water for reuse.
- 2. MoyoECG, by Alice Muhuhu (Kenya): a portable heart monitor designed to help frontline healthcare workers identify potential heart conditions and make timely referrals, particularly in clinics with limited access to specialist cardiac care. Early pilots have reduced interpretation time from around 30 minutes to under five minutes.
- 3. Renal Roads, developed by Naom Monari (Kenya): a fully equipped mobile dialysis clinic designed to bring regular, life-saving treatment closer to patients in rural and hard-to-reach communities. The clinic visits an average of three communities each week and can provide up to 400 dialysis sessions a month.
The £5,000 One-to-Watch Award, decided by audience vote, went to Johannes Amo-Aye from Ghana for Fusion Wind Turbine, a hybrid wind and solar microgrid system that delivers reliable, clean electricity to off-grid communities, supports and reduces reliance on diesel generators.
The four finalists pitched to a live audience and a panel of judges at an awards ceremony held at NH Johannesburg Sandton, supported by Anglo American and the British High Commission in South Africa. They were selected from a cohort of 16 entrepreneurs who completed an eight-month programme of training and mentoring.
The judging panel was chaired by Rebecca Enonchong FREng and included Sewu-Steve Tawia, Yewande Odumosu, Ian Shott FREng and Dr Richard Wylde FREng and guest judge, former Africa Prize winner, Neo Hutiri.
Each was assessed on the strength of their engineering solution, evidence of impact, commercial viability, potential to scale and quality of the team. Judges also considered how well each innovator applied learning from the eight-month programme and the clarity of their vision for the future.
“Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy, especially in environments where the challenges are even greater. Seeing how far Mamane has come and what he’s achieved is incredibly inspiring. For all contestants, the Africa Prize is more than a financial reward. They all receive mentoring, communications support and access to networks that can accelerate growth, which is a critical part of the innovation ecosystem but is often missing. Alumni of the Prize consistently go on to secure funding, and many now lead ventures that create employment and deliver meaningful impact,” said Rebecca Enonchong FREng, Chair of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation judging panel.
Applications will open again in mid-2027, with prospective applicants encouraged to visit the ‘How to Apply’ guide on the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation website for more information.
