Alain Nteff: The Healthtech Pioneer Whose Platform is a Gift to Mothers and Babies

Africa has faced numerous difficult health issues in recent years due to its poor healthcare system. To help address a portion of this issue, Cameroonian Alain Nteff launched Giftedmom in 2012, and the overwhelming situation forced him to expand his service scope and rebranded to Healthlane in 2019. 

Through a network of top-notch laboratories in Africa, Healthlane provides precise individualised health programs.

Nteff’s efforts have been noticed and lauded by Bill Gates, Rebecca Enonchung, the President of Rwanda, and the Queen of England, who honoured him.

His first project was with GiftedMom, a platform that sends pregnant women safe pregnancy messages. Over 500,000 women were contacted by GiftedMom in countries all over Africa. 

After the initial excitement died down, Alain continued to witness terrible cases of women who travelled great distances to medical facilities for safe deliveries only to receive poor care when they arrived.

This was the beginning of Healthlane. Today, Healthlane offers top-notch health quality evaluations. People are given access to an excellent collection of thorough diagnostics that offer an in-depth understanding of the most significant machines. 

Additionally, it is accessible in major African cities, including Lagos, Abidjan, Douala, and Nairobi.

The start of GiftedMom

Co-founder of Gifted Mom Alain Nteff attended Yaoundé’s Ecole Polytechnique to study computer science.

In 2012 when Nteff, then a 20-year-old engineering student, visited a rural Cameroon hospital, where his friend Conrad Tankou’s had his medical practice, the idea for GiftedMom began to awaken him.

There, he saw several moms and infants pass away from illnesses that could have been detected and treated with the right prenatal care. 

Nteff was profoundly moved by what he witnessed, and he and Tankou began formulating ideas to utilise their expertise to address the problem of maternal and newborn mortality.

“The problem of maternal and infant death is not a woman issue; it’s a humanitarian issue. Everybody should take it seriously. We all have mothers, we all have sisters, and it’s not just a problem for women or girls,” said Nteff.

His solution was to develop an SMS service that expecting and new moms could sign up for to get health advice, emphasising the significance of routine checkups. 

In essence, a low-cost route for educating women was being created. Only eight women initially signed up, but Gifted Mom’s reputation rose as the news spread.

“I’m passionate about using technology to solve problems in my community, and I just saw it as an opportunity to apply my engineering to solve one of the world’s biggest and oldest problems,” says Nteff.

Media organisations, including Forbes Afrique, CNN, and The Huffington Post, soon became interested in Nteff’s platform. 

According to Crunchbase, the firm received $220,000 from grants and equity investments from Unicef, Plan International and Nestle Nutrition.

He has influenced over 500,000 mothers in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritania, and Nigeria through various digital channels.

In addition, Alan Nteff has received recognition from the World Economic Forum as a Global Shaper, the Queen of England as a recipient of the Queen’s Young Leaders Award, and Google as a Student Ambassador.

Pivoting to Healthlane

Alain Nteff and his team pivoted from GiftedMom to Healthlane in March 2019 to continue on his path to bringing a successful healthcare system to Africa. 

The business currently provides Africans with a wide range of medical services and assists mothers with birthing complications.

For Nteff, 2020 was a significant year. The most vibrant startup accelerator in the world, Y Combinator, admitted Alain. There, his platform received $150,000 in exchange for 7% equity. Nteff needed this as his last motivation to take preventative health head-on.

The business announced in September 2020 that it was raising $2.4 million to increase its product offerings and that it has some intriguing plans in the pipeline.

In November 2021, Healthlane announced its official opening in Lagos.

NEXT:

5 African Countries with the Worst Health Care System