By Peter Theuri
A delightful duo of trailblazing women innovators, who have leveraged artificial intelligence (AI) to nudge Africa closer to food security and reliable healthcare, showcased their work during a webinar hosted through the Africa Science Dialogue on September 3, 2026, reminding participants of women’s potential in enabling environments.
Dr Rose Nakasi, a Ugandan researcher at the Makerere AI Health Lab and lecturer at Makerere University, is leading a team of innovators in developing AI-powered tools to make disease diagnosis faster and more consistent.
Her home country, she posited, like much of the rest of Africa’s Sub-Saharan region, bears a disturbing burden of diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and cervical cancer, which continue to place pressure on the health system. Inadequate capacity, both material and human, sometimes means that getting accurate diagnoses could become nightmarish, taking longer than it should or failing to happen altogether.
The quest for a simple, rapid, accessible and accurate diagnostics led her, alongside colleagues, to this pertinent innovation,
She leads the Ocular initiative, helping it shape its vision at the intersection of AI, microscopy-based diagnostics, and health systems innovation. Ocular is a suite of AI-enabled tools designed to strengthen microscopy-based diagnosis across clinical, training, and public health settings. It supports laboratory professionals in interpreting microscopy images, standardizes training processes, and enables the use of routine diagnostic data for disease monitoring and decision-making.
Built to integrate with existing laboratory workflows and widely available tools such as microscopes and smartphones, Ocular focuses on improving diagnostic quality while remaining practical for use in low-resource environments.
Researchers are combining microscopes, smartphones and AI to automate diagnosis of diseases including the aforementioned malaria, tuberculosis and cervical cancer. The system uses a 3D-printable adapter to connect a smartphone to a microscope, allowing images of patient samples to be captured and analyzed by AI models trained to detect disease-causing pathogens.
“If a disease is not accurately diagnosed, you are not going to get the right treatment, and you are not going to get the right care, therefore,” Nakasi said.
Early results from the technology have been promising. According to the researchers, the malaria model has achieved 92% specificity, while the cervical cancer model has surpassed 94% accuracy.
Across Uganda, this technology is being deployed, with more than 150 laboratory technicians and 10 pathologists having been trained to use it. According to Dr Nakasi, the project is working across more than 35 health facilities in Uganda.
Rwanda’s Clémence Uwamutarambirwa, an agroforester and innovator, is applying smart technology to a different challenge – helping farmers manage potato production more efficiently.
With the continent facing an avalanche of challenges, from climate change, to rapid urbanization, to strife, to unequal incomes, precision farming is one of the certain ways of optimal resources management and use.
She runs the Smart Potato Greenhouse Technology which combines sensors, cloud-based analytics and a mobile application to allow farmers and greenhouse managers to monitor growing conditions remotely.
Sensors installed in greenhouse beds continuously track temperature, humidity and soil moisture. “The information is transmitted to a cloud platform for analysis, while farmers receive updates and alerts on their mobile phones and can remotely manage irrigation,” said Uwamutarambirwa.
The technology also supports hydroponic production, where plants are grown using water-based nutrient solutions rather than conventional soil. “This soil-less technique yields higher potato seed output, conserves water resources and insulates crops against soil-borne pathogens,” she explained.
Uwamutarambirwa said feedback from greenhouse managers showed that the technology was making it easier to monitor production remotely, manage temperature and humidity and improve security of produce.
The two innovations illustrate how African researchers are adapting emerging technologies to local challenges rather than simply importing solutions developed elsewhere. Even better, as Dr Margaret Karembu, Director of ISAAA AfriCenter and Chair of Africa Women for Biosciences (AWfB) noted, women were taking a leading role in seeking key solutions for Africa.
Dr Karembu also noted that expanding women’s participation in emerging technologies would require support beyond women themselves.
“Increasing women’s participation in science and technology cannot be viewed as a responsibility for women alone. The support of men – as colleagues, supervisors, mentors, partners, institutional leaders and policymakers – is critical,” Dr Karembu said.
She called for stronger networks and opportunities for women interested in science and innovation, extending an invitation to the AWfB for women, including those who may not have formal training in biosciences.
More than 50 participants – including early-career scientists, agricultural researchers, policymakers, farmers, journalists, academics and industry representatives – attended the webinar.