Source Code

In 2020, we were very fortunate to be selected as Elevate Prize Fellows. Besides the recognition, we were ecstatic about receiving the monetary support, which was sorely missing to help us deliver on the service that our end-users need.

Fast forward half a year, and we have a whole new perspective on the value of the Elevate Prize. Beyond the warm comraderies and sense of belonging created with like-minded individuals, world-wide, is the unparalleled technical support. Each course/discussion provided by the Elevate Prize has been nothing short of mind-blowing! The simplicity, practicality, and usefulness of each lesson has provided deep and helpful insights, and catapulted our organization way beyond where we expected to be at this stage. Due to the EPF, we have completely overhauled our social media presence; drastically improved our branding and communication; and even altered how we present our solution (which a huge deal, considering we’ve been presenting the same way for 3 years).

I owe a lot of our growth as an organization, and my personal growth as a leader, to the Elevate Prize, and I cannot imagine a happier ending than getting to benefit from this support for another year.

My grandfather never finished school, yet he raised one of the first PhD’s in the country. Impoverished and with limited education opportunities, he helped his 5 children achieve more. Although my uncles had to work on a farm to put food on their plate, my grandparents instilled strong work-ethic in them and ensured that they performed well academically. This vision helped propel them to a better life.

So being named after my grandfather, was a big deal. A responsibility to help elevate others, that weighed heavy. Until it finally hit me: he did so much, with so little, so who am I to deny helping my country, when I’ve been blessed with so much. I’m not rich, but I’ve been blessed with a stress-free education and a drive to DO. So I must.

My company Source Code was created because I see in technology an opportunity to solve many of Mozambique’s problems. No matter how poor, practically everyone has a cellphone, so why not find a way to transform it into something that educates, empowers, and elevates each citizen? Why not employ my peers to help create solutions to the problems that plague our sisters and brothers? 

Everyone deserves to live a long, healthy, life, and access to health information and services is essential to realizing that. Unfortunately, that is difficult to achieve in a country like Mozambique where there is inadequate health workforce; with 0.055 physicians and 0.401 nurses and midwives per 1000 people, relative to the minimum recommended ratio of 2.3 of all healthcare workers (WHO, 2019). Furthermore, less than 10% of our population have access to Internet, 2/3 live in rural areas, with some up to 70km from the nearest health facility.

This is where we step in. We collect, categorize, and simplify health information from the Ministry of Health, then avail it with reduced barriers to access: single location, free of charge, available 24/7, without a need for Internet, and accessible through low-tech phones. As the main source of health information for many of the underserved we’ve been accessed 45 million times from 3 million users since our launch in November 2017.

We similarly serve the National Health System, by providing them with a channel to instantaneously message all our users, and draw insights from surveys and usage data. We are now supporting efforts to effectively deliver the Covid19 vaccines nation-wide.

Our innovation comes from Human-Centered Design approach we took. We analyzed the various barriers faced by the underserved population, and sought to address them, one by one. The constraints of our audience were identified (i.e. cost, low-tech phones, simple language, and lack of Internet), and we found a way to avail the information and services in a manner and channel that responded to those constraints. First we applied an existing technology, namely USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data), in a new way. Second, we negotiated with the Mobile Network Operators to avail this service as Corporate Social Responsibility and free of charge. Finally, we painstakingly review and simply, and categorize all content from the Ministry of Health. We are still working on addressing further constraints of illiteracy and those that speak local languages.

From the perspective of our primary partner, the Ministry of Health, we are working to deliver them more insight and information to help guide decision-making. With the wealth of information we have, we intend to start employing big data analytics and machine learning.

Our solution was designed from the ground-up to address the constraints of the underserved in seeking information and services that they want, need, and are entitled to. In doing so, according to a recent survey, we’ve become the main source of health information for our users (at 24% compared with the medical professionals that came in second with 18%). We’ve also delivered on our vision of helping Mozambicans to live healthier lives, according to 87% of our users who claim that our solution has done just that.

It’s important to bear in mind that our innovation is flexible. As needed we’ve been able to introduce new content and services. Most recently this was through flexible surveys, and the one we’re continuously doing on Covid19 vaccination acceptance is being used by the Ministry of Health to guide their communication strategy. In other words, we’re amplifying the voice of the underserved, and helping the National Health Service better respond to their needs.

Given the impact of our innovation, we are currently in talks with other government institutions to replicate our work to different areas.

Our PENSA platform has over 3.1 million users and 47 million views since launch, making us the largest mHealth platform in Mozambique. This number is of particular significance given that of our 29 million population, only 8 million have access to cellphones (the main media through which our solution is delivered). At current growth rates, we anticipate reaching 3.8 million users within a year.

In following the Theory of Change (ToC) framework, we are addressing the NEED of low level of health education/knowledge and poor health habits. Our INTERVENTION is through our mHealth platform PENSA that avails health information and services equitably (free of charge and accessible on low tech phones), and ensures that the information itself is simplified, relevant, and constantly updated.

An OUTPUT (direct result) of our intervention, is the accesses we receive. Each access represents a spontaneous intention/desire from a user to find a particular piece of health information. Since launch in November 2017, we have been accessed 47 million times, from 3.1 million users.

INTERMEDIATE OUTCOMES include PENSA *660# being perceived (by the population) as an important source of health information, worthy of being listened to. In a recent study by the National Health Institute, UNICEF, and the World Bank, on knowledge of Covid19 measures, they discovered that PENSA is the 3rd main source of health information to the population, following only TV and health-care workers. As for FINAL OUTCOMES, 87% of PENSA users claim it helps them lead healthier lives. Also, a study is underway, comparing the comparative health knowledge and behavior of PENSA users versus non-users.

We require sufficient funds to support the team as we work to deliver more meaningful functionalities to the solution. We need to be able to guarantee salaries, pay for the infrastructure and communication, and ideally have enough to recruit more people.

Another aspect is addressing the gaps in knowledge/experience. Our knowledge is mainly in software development, which doesn’t include Question-and-Answer section linked to Artificial Intelligence. Support with improvement management and efficiency would also be very beneficial.

We also face a cultural barrier around computer literacy and the use of data to drive decisions. While our data is gaining further acceptance at the communications level, getting the decision-makers to trust and access it, requires guidance and support.

Finally, we need to improve our legal standing, to best protect what we’ve worked hard to build. This is mainly around Intellectual Property and Terms and Conditions.

The Elevate Prize can help us overcome these barriers through:

1. Financial support – either through a direct grant or guidance in improving our revenue generation. 
2. Technical support with – talent acquisition and knowledge gap/experience, management, and government engagement.

As Elevate Prize Fund (EPF) Fellows 2020, we learnt the importance of identifying your audience and trying to address their needs. While we have several audiences, we believe that EPF’s platform could be of particular relevance to the:

1. Citizen/end-user (particularly the under-privileged living in remote areas) that accesses the platform for information and guidance;
2. Donor (both corporations & individuals) that seeks to support organizations like ours in helping the needy;
3. Partners/clients in the health space that could use our communication channel for their needs, while providing us with revenue and long-term sustainability.

Each of the above audiences can be found in different spaces, have different needs, and must be approached in different ways. With the support of EPF, we can build a tailored plan and tap into your resources to amplify the work we’re doing and people we’re helping.

Building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive team cannot be achieved at one point/intervention. During recruitment we explicitly encourage the participation of diverse groups (sexual orientation, ethnicity, women, differently abled, etc). Their CV’s are given special attention to facilitate hiring.

As part of the team, we foster an environment of open discussion and opposing points of view to help us build a better team and product. For instance, despite us educating the population on Covid19 vaccination, we have team members that don’t share the same conviction for it, and our product discussions with everyone, help us identify improvements to communication/information.

The first advantage to our team is our diversity which includes a healthy mix of ethnicity, gender, age, income-level, knowledge area, and location of birth. We also have team mates with backgrounds from private sector, public sector, and civil society, enabling us to “speak the language” of whichever entity we’re interacting with.

We also share a common vision in what we are trying to achieve with the platform, and a belief in its (and our) capability in bringing good to Mozambique, and serving the under-privileged.

Finally, our relationships at the Ministry of Health (and other government institutions) continue to prove beneficial.

In mid-late 2020, the Ministry of Health requested we update some important information on Covid19 and send out a bulk (mass) SMS campaign to our then 2.3 million users. As always, in situations like these, we first had a quick discussion on the objectives, then I prepared instructions for the team. They had been exhausted with the workload and inevitably mistakes were made. Mistakes from deviation/lack of adherence to the instructions.

The MOH reacted furiously, already accusing the team mates they knew were involved in the mistake. After talking with the team, I assumed responsibility for the error with the MOH, informing that only those that do, create mistakes, yet simultaneously reiterating our commitment professionalism. I calmed the team member that created the problem and met with the team to fix the problem and discuss (without judgement), how we can work together to prevent such errors in the future.

We have not since had that type of mistake, and the team trusts each other more to help spot problems/errors and fix them.

MIT Solve sharing on LinkedIn, PENSA's milestone of 3 million users and 45 million views

Social website article on PENSA being selected as one of 7 MIT Solver in Health Security and Pandemics Challenge

Social website sharing PENSA milestone of 1 million users accessing platform

South Africa's Civic Tech organization's LinkedIn post on a talk we gave on using innovation in a low-tech environment to support the government and population

Jornal newspaper article (in Portuguese) on PENSA milestone of 2 million users

Jornal newspaper on PENSA reaching milestone of 1 million users on platform

Our mHealth solution has already reached and helped millions of people with pertinent and timely information. If we are selected as an Elevate Prize winner, we want to build on this by:

1. Delivering services to the end-user such as vaccination registration, automated questions and answering, health facility evaluation/feedback. The delivery mechanisms could also evolve to include local languages and voice-based interaction for the illiterate.
2. From the National Health System perspective, we have already gained their interest and attention with the flexibility and speed with which we deliver surveys on public health matters and supply relevant information. We want to build on this by refining the feedback loop to encourage more reliance on data to drive their policy. This includes improvements to technology, insight gathering with the assistance of AI, and finally training of the Public Health Leaders to best make use of this data.
3. Finally, we need to introduce revenue streams to allow for the system to survive without external support. In the process, we will also add more advanced machine learning to help make more sense of user preferences.

PENSA was launched in 2017 in partnership with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and is governed by a 3-year MOU, that was recently renewed. Through this agreement, the MOH uses PENSA to:

• Exclusively post content, thus fighting disinformation enabling users to find reliable information. This can be done whenever the MOH desires and is immediately made available to the users.
• Send content to users (via SMS campaigns to the entire user-base or to specific demographics based on age, gender, location, etc.).
• Receive content from users (through surveys to learn about user views/tendencies, or even receive comments and questions directly).
• Access and study statistics to stay abreast on the needs and doubts of the population, as well as make informed decision.

Source Code and PENSA have also partnered with Associação Ologa Conectar Moçambique, a non-profit association that uses innovative technologies and methodologies to facilitate the provision of health care, well-being, education and humanitarian services. Through this partnership, Ologa supports PENSA by:

• Establishing agreements with other institutions that aim to carry out activities that may promote synergies.
• Guiding and managing resources allocation.
• Monitoring and evaluation.