“Vula” Eye Health Mobile Phone App is the R1-million winner of the third Annual SAB Foundation Social Innovation Awards.
SAB Foundation Innovation Awards was held on Thursday October 31 to award this prestigious prize.
The Mobile Phone App by innovators William Mapham and Professor Kovin Naidoo, aims to improve eye care in South Africa’s low-income communities by educating people about different eye conditions, providing access to eyesight tests and connecting them to eye care professionals. The prize money will be used to grow and commercialise the product, which is aimed at making an impact among blind people in low income areas, with a focus on rural areas.
The 2013 second place winner of R500 000 is Altis Osteogenic Bone Matrix, an injectable bone regeneration product developed by Nuno Pires. The grant will be used to help roll the product out in local state hospitals as an affordable and less painful alternative to traditional bone graph procedures.
In joint third place with a grant of R300 00 each is ProYouth Naturals SNE Complex 54, body care products using medicinal African plants; SavvyLoo, a waterless toilet for rural and temporary settlements; and Repurpose Schoolbag, a schoolbag made of 100% recycled plastic shopping bags.
The SAB Foundation Innovation Awards was established with the objective of rewarding and scaling up innovative sustainable solutions to the pressing daily challenges facing low-income people, specifically women, the youth, people with disabilities, and people living in rural areas in order to improve economic growth and prosperity and the quality of life of all South Africans.
In addition, several seed grants are awarded. Additional categories of awards exist for entries from women, youth, people in rural areas and people with disabilities. The grant includes funding for scaling up and commercialisation of the innovation solution, a process which will be supported by the SAB Foundation over a period of two years or longer, as needed.
Seed grants of R150 000 each were awarded to:
Power in a bottle, a mobile solar energy power pack housed in a 5 litre plastic container
Know Your Child, an IT platform which sends learner homework requirements from teachers to parents via mobile text messages
Bulk Brick Layer, a brick building template which eliminates the complexities of the skill
FerbiGas, a biodigester which converts decomposed organic matter into methane gas for cooking and other energy uses
Light of Dawn, an eco-friendly LED battery operated lamp made from recycled cold drink bottles
Motor Monitor Cam, internal and external recording device package for vehicles
SMART Stand-by, a device that monitors electrical power usage
The Terrawatt Raptor Renewable Energy Device, a wind turbine energy storage device.
Tour2.0, an online tour operator offering tour packages in local communities.
