On Sunday 4th December, 6 teams presented their services as part of the Demo Night of Garage48, an event that serves to build new web and mobile service working prototypes in one single weekend. The winner, Mediminder, that is building a mobile app platform for African healthcare was announced at the Vodacom World centre in Johannesburg.
Garage 48, supported by international companies Google, Vodacom and Blackberry, is known as a very intensive course for IT entrepreneurs that focuses on bringing ideas into real life through teamwork and motivating deadlines. It also helps talented developers to get in contact with successful entrepreneurs in Europe and America. The various teams that participate, compete to have the best start-up idea implemented. The event that began in Estonia in April 2010, has since spread to other countries in Northern Europe and Africa including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
The winner of the Johannesburg event’s app, Mediminder, improves the effectiveness of medication, by encouraging individuals to take their medication at the correct time and in the long term aims to build information channels between doctors and patients. This is particularly relevant in South Africa, that has the biggest population of HIV infections in the world.
Garage48 co-founder Ragnar Sass said that: “African start-up entrepreneurs are facing way more challenges then their colleagues in Europe or America, but they have a far better understanding about local problems and so they are more experienced to find solutions for them. I personally believe, that Africa does not need so much aid, but rather more help building up successful entrepreneurship. We are here with Garage48 to boost the culture of start-ups and entrepreneurship in Africa.”
Today, in addition to the organization of its global events, the Garage48 Foundation runs the Garage48 HUB, an affordable coworking space in central Tallinn, Estonia.
For more information about Garage48, watch the video below:
