A medical monitoring system built and repaired in Niger has won Africa's biggest engineering prize. Mamane Kabirou Ousseini, chief executive and co-founder of Likita Care, took the £50,000 top award at the 2026 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation in Johannesburg on 28 October, becoming the first engineer from Niger to enter and win it.
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"Winning the Africa Prize is a dream come true. We started this project five years ago," Ousseini said.
What Likita Care built
Hospitals in poorer countries often receive imported patient monitors that break down and cannot be repaired locally, leaving expensive equipment unused. Likita Care's answer is to make the equipment in Niger, so it can be maintained and fixed there.
Its platform combines connected hardware, clinical software and local manufacturing. It covers three kinds of monitoring:
| Use | What it does |
|---|---|
| Patient monitoring | Tracks vital signs for adults |
| Cardiac monitoring | Records the heart's activity |
| Prenatal monitoring | Follows the foetus and mother during pregnancy |
A central dashboard brings the readings together, and an AI module helps clinicians interpret vital signs in real time. According to the Royal Academy of Engineering, which runs the prize, more than 70 units have been produced and deployed in Niger, they are in use across five medical centres, and the system has been tested with more than 100 patients and over 4,000 data points.
Ousseini plans to use the £50,000, about $67,000, to commercialise the system in Niger and prepare to expand into neighbouring West African markets.
The rest of the field
| Award | Innovator | Country | Innovation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winner, £50,000 | Mamane Kabirou Ousseini, Likita Care | Niger | Locally made medical monitoring platform |
| Runner-up, £10,000 | Dyllon Randall, Pee-Cycling | South Africa | System that turns urine into fertiliser |
| Runner-up, £10,000 | Alice Muhuhu, MoyoECG | Kenya | Portable heart monitor for frontline health workers |
| Runner-up, £10,000 | Naom Monari, Renal Roads | Kenya | Mobile dialysis clinic for rural areas |
| One to Watch, £5,000 | Johannes Amo-Aye, Fusion Wind Turbine | Ghana | Hybrid wind and solar microgrid for off-grid areas |
Three of the four finalists built health technology, a sign of where Africa's engineering talent is finding the most urgent problems. The One to Watch award was decided by an audience vote.
Rebecca Enonchong, who chairs the judges, said alumni of the prize "consistently go on to secure funding, and many now lead ventures," and noted that being an entrepreneur is harder in environments where the challenges are greater.
Why it matters
The prize is more than the cheque. Sixteen innovators are shortlisted each year and go through an eight-month programme of business training and mentoring before the four finalists pitch. For hardware founders, who struggle to raise early money in Africa because prototypes are expensive and slow to scale, that support can matter as much as the prize.
Likita Care's model also answers a common failure in African healthcare technology. Donated or imported devices often sit idle because spare parts and repair skills are thousands of kilometres away. Building locally keeps repairs close and costs down.
Can Nigerians enter?
Yes. The Africa Prize is open to engineers and innovators who are citizens of, and live in, a sub-Saharan African country. The lead applicant must be at least 18 and fluent in English. Hardware entries need a working prototype and evidence of customer interest; software entries need a working product and real users.
Applications for the current cycle opened on 13 July and closed on 8 September 2026. If the next cycle follows the same pattern, applications will open around July 2027 on the Africa Prize website. Nigerian hardware founders should use the months before then to build a working prototype and gather proof that customers want it.
A monitor made and repaired in Niger has beaten the continent's best engineers. Its win is a strong case for building African hardware close to the people who use it.
