The best of the best

March 2024 News

The Royal Academy of Engineering is investing over £1 million this year in alumni of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation programme through grants, prizes and accelerator programme awards, to facilitate the long-term success of innovations addressing local challenges. The programme is Africa’s biggest prize dedicated to engineering innovation and supporting entrepreneurs to maximise their impact, and is marking its tenth anniversary this year.

South African engineer, Neo Hutiri has been selected as best of the best. He won the Africa Prize in 2019 and has been awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering’s tenth anniversary medal, beating nine previous Africa Prize alumni from Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Cameroon. The award was presented by HRH The Princess Royal at a ceremony that celebrated some of the most successful innovators and businesses from the past ten years. The medal comes with more than a million rand to boost his business, Technovera, which makes Pelebox Smart Lockers to improve access to medication for chronic diseases, including tuberculosis and HIV.

South Africa has the world’s biggest antiretroviral therapy programme for patients living with HIV and AIDS, and there has been a steady increase in the number of patients with non-communicable diseases requiring chronic therapy. Pelebox is an internet-enabled smart locker dispensing system that enables clients to collect their repeat chronic medication in under 30 minutes instead of waiting hours in queues at healthcare facilities. They are now operational across South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.

Pelebox smart lockers work in African countries where national health ministries need to reach more people, but are limited by the number of traditional healthcare facilities, staff shortages, and high patient volumes. Pelebox smart lockers offer convenient collection points and have processed over a million chronic scripts to date.

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