What is the name of your organization?
Salud Verde (Green Health Initiative)
What is the name of your solution?
Ethnomed Green Health App EGHA
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
App for disease surveillance and response in remote areas, linking users to doctors and indigenous healers for intercultural attention protocols.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Guatemala
What type of organization is your solution team?
Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
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What specific problem are you solving?
In Guatemala, millions of people in rural and indigenous communities face serious challenges in accessing reliable healthcare. Public health efforts lack culturally acceptable surveillance systems that can effectively detect outbreaks early-on. Yet, the country holds a vast and underutilized treasure: the ancestral medicinal knowledge of Maya people. Passed down orally for generations by traditional healers known as Ajq’ijj-Ajq’omaneel, this knowledge is in danger of disappearing as this wisdom is not documented or economically valued. Additionally, these communities often lack viable economic opportunities, despite being guardians of unique biocultural heritage.
We are solving three interconnected problems:
1.Limited access to healthcare resources in rural Guatemala.
2.Cultural loss due to the oral-only transmission of Mayan medicinal knowledge.
3.Economic exclusion of indigenous communities from global health innovation, despite their role in sustaining biodiversity and traditional remedies.
Our solution will monitor and record disease outbreaks, offer viable Western and traditional healthcare options, digitize and protect Maya healing science, share health practices, provide education, and open pathways to economic security for indigenous groups through ethical biotrade, income generation, and healthy community members. Additionally it will preserve a critical part of Guatemala’s cultural and ecological legacy.
What is your solution?
A mobile app to ensure that people in remote areas have access to healthcare and to accurately surveil illness outbreaks. The app will include an incremental database of over 500 local medicinal plants scientifically studied to not only cure illness, but also preventatively support health.
It will allow for healers to report illnesses and symptomatology to both the Guatemalan Department of Health and Mayan healers. It will record this information and look for patterns in symptomatology and transmission. The user will receive a response from both the department of health, as it will be linked to their epidemiology surveillance teams, as well as from traditional Maya healers, with a suggested course of action and a direct link to public services.
The app will feature offline access, visual and audio content, AI plant identification, and a syndromic reporting system to support rural healthcare and disease surveillance.
Economically, EGHA will operate via a subscription model (as outlined in the video). With a 50% margin, it will redirect 60% of net profits to participating communities, ensuring long-term, equitable benefit.
EGHA is more than a tech tool; it's a living archive, a healing platform, and a bridge between ancient wisdom and the future of global health.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
EGHA serves rural populations lacking access to healthcare by offering a near-real time community surveillance and response system (S&R) that allows traditional healers to communicate health threats and trigger attention protocols from public-health authorities, while additionally offering guidance on natural treatments for common conditions with locally available plants. Including traditional healers in S&R efforts improves health indicators in areas with low healthcare coverage, which are our target. By working with a pictorial interface with local languages audios, we surpass low-literacy access barriers. Additionally EGHA connects to frontline health workers and educators that will benefit from training tools rooted in traditional practices.
Communities gain a platform to document and transmit their ethnomedical knowledge digitally, ensuring intergenerational transmission and cultural preservation. Additionally, EGHA creates income streams via knowledge-sharing, content creation and ethical biotrade, with 60% of net profits redistributed to participating communities.
Beyond Guatemala, researchers, travelers, and ethical pharmaceutical companies will gain structured, respectful access to verified ethnomedicinal data under community-approved agreements, opening avenues for innovation while upholding indigenous rights.
EGHA empowers indigenous voices, improves health equity, and creates bridges between tradition and innovation. It transforms neglected wisdom into dignified livelihoods, accessible care, and a sustainable model of cultural resilience.
