Congratulations to the Winner of the Inaugural APCA Radical Innovations Challenge!
The African Palliative Care Association (APCA), in partnership with Global Treehouse, Cambridge Africa Programme and International Children’s Palliative Care Network, proudly launched the first-ever African Palliative Care Association Radical Innovations Challenge.
This groundbreaking initiative was created to spark new ideas that will transform palliative care and bereavement support across Africa. The challenge actively invited ‘blue-sky thinking’ to enhance the quality, accessibility, delivery, equity and effectiveness of care for individuals with serious illnesses and their families. For this project, innovation is defined as creating, adopting or adapting new ways of working – be it through policies, practices, systems or technologies – to make care more effective and accessible. This approach builds on established innovation frameworks, specifically focusing on technology, scalable models and data-driven approaches.
The challenge attracted a remarkable array of creative solutions from finalists, all demonstrating ingenious ways to leverage new technologies and models. These innovations hold the potential to improve access to resources and services, particularly for children, adolescents and their families, with a focus on Africa but translatable globally. The partners are sponsoring a prize and mentorship to support the implementation of the winning innovation.
Congratulations to the winner, Nabungje Diana Lubega!
She is a software engineer and project manager at MRT IT Peaks Ltd with a passion for utilising technology to drive social impact, particularly in healthcare. She leads the development of mPallCare, a digital health platform designed to improve care delivery for individuals with life-limiting illnesses. Through innovative solutions that integrate mobile and web technologies, she strives to enhance accessibility and quality of life for patients and their families. As the winner of the APCA Innovation Competition, she is excited to share the vision of transforming healthcare delivery across Africa.
Colleague Njuki Patrick represented her at the event, including the cover photograph. Dr Eve presented a cash prize on behalf of APCA and the prize committee. They will receive mentorship from the committe, and we look forward to following their impact!
Kudos to the finalists!
Congratulations, Zama Ndlazi, who placed second. She is a medical officer at a long-term psychiatric hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her innovation advocates for integrating palliative care into mental health services within South Africa’s psychiatric hospitals — uniting fragmented systems and restoring dignity in life and death for society’s most marginalised.
Kudos to Nuhamin Tekle Gebre, who came in third place. She is a physician and palliative care researcher, and advisor for palliative care for the Ministry of Health, Ethiopia. This digitally enabled home-based model transforms basic mobile phones into powerful palliative care tools, empowering community health workers with adaptive decision support, symptom tracking, and specialist mentorship. It’s an innovative, scalable leap toward equitable chronic care in low-resource communities.
“The global need for high-quality palliative care is immense, and addressing the significant access challenges requires bold solutions. APCA Radical Innovations Challenge was launched precisely to spark these new ideas, with an attempt for transforming palliative care and bereavement support across Africa, ensuring greater quality, accessibility and effectiveness for all. We at the African Palliative Care Association are proud of all the wonderful participants, and excited to see the semifinalists and winner’s powerful ideas elevated.”
Photographs of winner and finalists provided by APCA, other photos provided by Erin Das