It’s time for LILab to share something special! 🌱 We are dedicating this summer to unfold innovations in one of our focus areas: Social Innovation Hub 🌍 At LILab we aim at building a collaborative hub that examines the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDP) and facilitates innovations designed to reach them.
Therefore, we want you to get to know I-MED Vision a German-based non-governmental organization (NGO) which provides health education through a combination of on-site training and digital tools.
Dr. Rick Hoffman, Project Manager of the Organization gave us an interview. Here are his words:
Which impact do you want to make with i-MED vision?
We want to contribute to improving children’s health and a reduction in child mortality in southern Africa and to making basic healthcare and health education more available to a broader range of marginalized populations.
How is tech innovation helping i-MED vision to achieve its goal?
The significant advantage of digital solutions in international development assistance is that after a costly initiation phase the follow-up costs are very low in relation to the large scalability and that the tools can be used permanently. South Africa has one of the fastest growing mobile device markets in the world, with access to free Wi-Fi in many places and becoming even more widespread in the future. Therefore, we believe our technologies such as an e-learning software and a new health app have the power to bring health education to many people who would not otherwise access it.
What does innovation mean to you?
To me, innovation means not accepting the status quo. We know from global health reports that child mortality is already decreasing in southern Africa. However, there is still much work to be done. We want to improve the situation even further, and so we are using these new tools to bring health education to the community. Also, even within our organization, we are continuously trying to better our tools.
What advice would you give to a social entrepreneur?
Keep the passion even if people won’t believe in your success, but never forget to change perspectives from time to time and work on design thinking. Without understanding the needs of your clients, you will not succeed.
i-MED Vision always needs support, if you want to encourage their initiative, you can donate.
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