The recently concluded 3rd Annual Health Innovations Conference, organized by the Academy for Health Innovation under the Infectious Diseases Institute, is a true testament to the resilience and ever-evolving nature of the health Innovations landscape in Uganda and the world over. Following the cancellation of the physical conference early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizing team had to work with the available innovations in order to ensure the sustainability of this networking platform.

The two-day virtual Conference, which ran from the 9th to 10th November 2021, under the theme Collaborating to Transform: Lessons learned from the Pandemic, was officially opened by Hon Dr. Monica Musenero, Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation. Following the theme, the Honourable Minister encouraged all the innovators not to work in silos but rather collaborate and share ideas, “We need to realize the value of collaboration towards development in all sectors including health. This will create progress and positive change towards the general population as well as the quality of life.”

The virtual event had a robust line-up of seasoned, resourceful as well as young and vibrant players in the innovations landscape who substantiated the Minister’s message by giving spirited presentations and discussions. The presenters and participants were from as far as Denmark, Kenya, the USA, South Africa, and Tanzania. International and local organizations like the World Bank, United Nations Community Development Fund (UNCDF) Digital, NITA-U, World Health Organization (WHO), KTA Advocates, The Medical Concierge Group (TMCG), NFT Consult, CENIT/GIZ-EAC, were all fully represented and able to network and share ideas on emerging issues in this health Innovations space.

The event featured the finest in their fields discussing issues straight from: A Keynote session on Leveraging technology to transform Health care, to a plenary session on harnessing private-public partnerships as well as delving deep into rich discussions in break-out sessions around building interoperable systems, the sustainability of things as well as making the best of emerging technologies.

The conference closed on a strong note with a Master clinic on Mental Health awareness in Entrepreneurship and Innovation as well as a virtual exhibition of some of the trending innovation products and projects like the Home-Based Care App, The HIV self-testing Chatbot as well as a demonstration of Medical drones.