One Young World: The winners

Earlier this month, the Mail & Guardian showcased 10 inspiring Africans doing great things in the fields of technology and development. Some of them shared their stories of leveraging technology to improve their communities on the M&G’s Voices of Africa blog.

This coincides with the upcoming One Young World Summit in Johannesburg, where  over 1 300 young leaders from 190 countries will gather to share their ideas and visions on development and leadership. As part of its commitment to developing young leaders, the M&G is sponsoring two of the 10 shortlisted candidates to attend the event and share their ideas with a global audience.

We’ve chosen Oscar Epkonimo from Nigeria and  Gregory Rockson from Ghana. Congratulations!

Oscar (26) is a software developer and social entrepreneur behind Aiderz, a crowd funding platform for social good. It was recently instrumental in raising funds for a student to undergo surgery in India to remove a brain tumour. The platform is currently being developed. Once complete, there is huge potential for many deserving individuals and communities to benefit from the power and generosity of the digital crowd. Read Oscar’s story here.

Gregory (22) is passionate about access to healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa. The young Ghanaian founded mPharma, a system which digitises the traditional prescription notepad and transforms it into an interactive prescription writing tool. This way, physicians can send mobile prescription scripts to their patients and record and report adverse drug reactions in real time. Gregory has successfully partnered with the Zambian health ministry to deploy mPharma in the country’s health facilities. Read Gregory’s story here.

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