Levit Nudi is the founder and research scientist at Notonlab Inc, an authenticity verification company in Kenya, where he focuses on developing new innovative medical devices and software solutions.
As self-taught software developer and tech enthusiast, Nudi is credited for the creation of the mobile app ‘Tambua’. The app, which was launched in 2018 helps in identifying counterfeit and inferior prescription medications throughout the continent of Africa, Scidev.net reports.
“While dying from a disease is inevitable, dying from medicine never should be!”, said the winner of Africa Storytelling Challenge.
“We hope to save hundreds of thousands of lives lost every year in Africa alone due to consumption of counterfeit or substandard medicine,” said Nudi.
“By giving consumers access to valuable product information, we hope to bring justice to the consumers as well as manufacturers who spend a lot of time and resources developing innovative products that counterfeiters unfairly compete against and tarnish the consumer perception of what those brands stand for,” Nudi added.
The app named after the Swahili word, which means identity, according to Nudi uses a bar code, QR code, and location tracking technology to monitor prescribed medications throughout the supply chain, posing difficulty for counterfeiters to access and fake them.
Meanwhile, the mobile help consumers to scan and immediately identify products, even with limited access to the internet, which differentiates it from other existing solutions on the market.
“Between February 2018 and September 2018, 5,000 verification results were of government approved premises and some of the verified drugs,” Nudi said, according to Scidev.net.
“With an increasing number of successful verifications on our platform, we believe consumers are now able to make more informed decisions on what and where to buy medicine.”
Data from the World Health Organization infers that one out of ten medical products is substandard or falsified, and likely responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of children from diseases such as malaria and pneumonia every year. And that is a big threat to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
With over five years of experience in various fields of technology space and digital health, Nudi is always involved in community development services such as empowering women and girls in technology.
He has been a volunteer in various capacities to help individuals and startups in the science and technology to research and develop their prototypes and products.
