Explosive mobile growth means staying in touch on social and messaging solutions has never been easier in Africa. We look at some applications with varying uses which African’s are using to connect, share experiences and improve health care.

Pelichat – South Africa
There are often situations where people don’t know those around them but want to connect and share with such as a university, sports event or concert, people are sharing the same experience and are interconnected based on their location.

Pelichat is interest based. Users only engage with the content they want to see, not what their friends want them to see or not what they want their friends to see. No sign ups or registration is required, just a username. This allows users to share freely and openly with each other, promoting engagement between users, maintaining anonymity, but enabling users to have a say.

Jongla – Nigeria
Mobile’s share of web traffic is among highest in the world in African countries but connection speeds are among the lowest. Cellular and data services in Africa are often unreliable and expensive. Jongla is the world’s lightest messaging app. Downloading Jongla for Android takes on average almost ten times less data compared to competitor apps and for iOS less than half. Also, Jongla has been built to save data on daily use. With the Jongla apps, people in Africa can enjoy social messaging and save money and data.

Vula Mobile – South Africa
Picture a junior doctor at a hospital, at the end of a dirt road, hours from the nearest big town with no landline phone. There is a patient in front of the doctor who has a severe eye problem and needs specialist advice.

Not an easy situation, but Vula Mobile has created a specialist network solution which assists health care professionals through a mobile app utilising instant messaging and public sector health workers to provide assistance in these situations.

Vula Mobile instant messaging has a unique ‘On Call’ system. A specialist goes ‘On Call’ and will receive all messages for his/her speciality at his/her hospital. When going ‘Off Duty’ he/she is required to nominate another specialist. This ensures that there is always a specialist ‘On Call’ to help health workers.

This means that any remote health worker can choose the hospital and the specialty required and is then connected instantly to the right specialist.

LOGISA – Tanzania
The Community Module of the LOGISA Platform addresses the lack of transparency and social collaboration within the transport and logistics sector.

It provides a place, regardless of time, location, gender and age, where people can connect and collaborate within the Transport & Logistic sector which is currently undeserved due to geographic constraints.

The platform provides the possibility to create online communities in which people can connect, share, like and create events, WIKI’S, articles, blogs, video’s and photo’s. Communities stimulate interaction and innovation which means more transparency within and between organizations and individuals.

Dokita Eyes – Togo
Most people in Togo do not have a family doctor, many forget the history of their illnesses and do not have health service documents. This creates a waste of time and financial resources at the health centers with doctors and staff having to start from the beginning each time.

On top of this there is often a lack of physicians, doctors and health centers in rural areas with very low rates of patient follow-up because of distance and resources. Dokita Eyes App is a mobile app which is solving this enabling the free sharing of medical information and files between the medical staff across locations. It allows to follow-up the patient’s medical report such us the analysis’ graphic and disease story.

These innovations have been shortlisted for the Appsafrica Innovation Awards.The Awards supported by Uber, Opera, The Mobi Hunter,  Mobile Monday South Africa (MOMO) the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF) and the MMA the Awards celebrate the best in mobile and tech from across Africa, providing winners with global publicity, recognition and networking with 300+ industry peers at the Awards party in Cape Town on November 14th.

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