Huawei Tackling Malaria in Africa with Technology at the Huawei ICT Competition

There are so many reasons to love the global final of Huawei's 2025 to 2026 ICT competition. I like making connections, I like making new friends, I like shaping a new world. It gives students from all over the world the capacity to develop skills and put them into It's the chance to come to sunny China to meet fellow students and teachers from around the world, to test yourself in competition, to pitch your best ideas, embrace new technologies and learn new skills and improve your chances of future employment. On top of that you get a brand new free t-shirt. Not bad. This is the 10th annual talent showcase event and this year's edition has been a record breaker. More students from more higher education institutions from more countries and regions than ever before but whittled down to just 177 teams for this global final. They all attend expert tuition sessions and compete across three overall categories practice, innovation and programming with subtracts in each and grand prizes for the best. Because that's another reason to love this ICT competition, the chance to win. As the official event theme puts it, connection, glory, future and who doesn't love a bit of glory. The emphasis is on tech for good with a focus on creatively applying emerging technologies to address real world problems and challenges. Absolutely typified by this Nigerian team who won in the innovation category. Their paravision system uses AI to spot malaria and intestinal parasites from microscope images of blood and stool samples. It uses AI inference and image processing working without an internet connection to produce near instant diagnostic reports. The solution runs on Huawei tech including the Ascend 310B4 AI processor, Open Euler operating system, Mindspore and Huawei cloud model arts. It's an AI diagnostic support system which we designed to help the healthcare workers instead of having to go through all the long queues due to microscope details. So you could simply use our device to test the malaria and stool parasites in less than three minutes. And it's an incredibly important issue in Nigeria. I understand that almost a third of all malaria cases are in Nigeria. Yes, yes, yes. Our goal is to go to all these clinics and rural areas to address that issue of delay and make it fast, reliable and cure the illness as fast as possible. Malaria is the number one child killer while stool parasite is the number three. So since they are parasitic, we work on diagnosing them faster with the device. Testing stool parasite is not common in all local small clinics or rural areas. You have to come to a federal clinic or general clinic of the city for that test. But with this device, you can do your test in your own community without coming to the urban hospital or general hospital. What makes ours even better is with areas that have low power supply, it comes with a solar power backup companion. So it makes it easy to use. You don't have to worry about the power outage. You don't need internet connectivity. So it's incredibly practical and easy to use. I mean, you put it in for the innovation award here at the event. And were you surprised to win? What was your reaction? Actually, we are really surprised because at first we were thinking we become the first. But later on to our surprise, it just comes to a grand prize. And we are really excited about it. Yes, and we know our device is good. So we're confident that we'd get the grand prize and nothing less. So you got your just rewards, is what you're saying? You deserve this, that's fine. I think my voice is gone because I screamed loudly. Well, not only did you win this grand prize, within minutes you were back on stage winning the Women in Tech as well. And you're from Nigeria. There's another team here from your university. There's also a team from a different university in Nigeria. They also today won a grand prize. Nigeria have actually been very successful historically at this event. What is the secret recipe of Nigeria? What are you all doing so well? Dedication. In Nigeria, majorly, students at times lack equipment to practice. But they are talented. So if they are getting the opportunity, they will do the best. So Huawei give them a platform where they have access to devices, they practice, they learn. So as far as I understand, they are great when it comes to technical aspects. So implementation is easier when you have the devices. So we are grateful for all the support given to us. So the appetite is there, but now you've got the opportunity as well to do something. And what's the next step with this project? Where does it go next? Actually, we are thinking we have a critical pension. Our pension is scalable so that it can go very globally, everywhere. Yes, and to plan strategically with the NGOs, government agencies, and also international health agencies like the WHO, UNICEF and others. So today Nigeria, tomorrow the world. So far, the device is there. It has been developed. We have done some elementary tests. So we need to do more clinical tests. Collect more data and have to increase the accuracy. Precision of the device. So once you have that, the cost price of this device is 500 USD. So now, that's the production. While they sell it, it's 700. So it's still on the high side. Why is it on the high side? Because the processing chip we are using comes with a lot of parts that are not usable for this device. So now the next target is to customize this device based on the necessary equipment you require for the paradigm shift. So that's the whole target. And that will make the device, the cost price to come down. It will be more affordable to people. So customization, and then maybe even the size may end up reducing. Well, I'm sure that Huawei will do its best to help you along the way. But congratulations again to all of you. It's obviously a fantastic project. I'm sure it'll be successful. There's only really one way to finish. And that is in... I need a visa!