🦾 How AI Helps Cure 2.5 Million Africans

Got the power? These guys used Midjourney and Luma to put a bunch of political bigwigs on the catwalk. Now we just need to pull a Formula 1 and demand they wear their “sponsors” as badges.

In this Open Letter:

• Health game: How AI is saving 2.5 million Africans.

• Finfluencer clampdown, SA’s VC rise & blue screens of death.

• Don’t miss out: Community events & engagement for you.

• Who built your company website: The results are in.

• Real value: Share this and get 100+ SA business ideas.

TRENDING NOW

AI Helps Cure 2.5 Million Africans

Tuberculosis (TB) is a pretty big deal considering it now trumps HIV/AIDS and is second only to COVID-19 among the world’s leading infectious killers.

In fact, in 2021 more than 832 people contracted TB each day in South Africa, with 153 (18%) losing their lives daily to a disease that’s totally preventable and treatable.

But it ain't easy to diagnose…

Part of the reason why so many still die of TB is that it’s hard to detect:

• Firstly, the symptoms of TB (coughing, fever, night sweats, weight loss etc), are pretty common in a ton of other diseases – so it's often misdiagnosed.

• Secondly, the bacteria in TB is slow-growing, taking a while to detect, resulting in multiple doctor's visits, tests, X-rays, and, again, plenty of misdiagnoses (and expenses).

• Lastly, given SA’s already buckling health system, clinics in poorer communities outside of major metropoles have up to 3 hours waiting time, so a real pain getting treatment (if you ever even get diagnosed).

The true cost of TB

TB tests can cost as much as R3’000 a pop, and treatment is insane: one course requires daily medication for 6–8 MONTHS, easily running to R20’000 for some TB tablets.

Add in other meds like cough syrup, painkillers and immune boosters to alleviate the symptoms, and it starts turning into a costly exercise – not to mention potentially being off work all that time 😵‍💫.

Speeding up Diagnosis

The key to fighting TB is early detection. Enter local MedTech AI Diagnostics.

These guys are revolutionising TB screening with their AI-enabled digital stethoscope that captures and analyses a patient’s lung sounds and feeds it back to a state-of-the-art deep neural network that’s been trained on thousands of negative and positive lung sounds.

AI Diagnostic’s tech improves the accuracy of TB detection dramatically, cutting down on missed cases by 41% and reducing unnecessary tests by 33%. With this improved testing mechanism alone, you’re looking at a saving of R300 million on lab costs each year. 

The Western Cape Government is already using it to make TB diagnosis faster, cheaper, and more reliable, especially in primary healthcare.

With South Africa’s illustrious history of medical advancement and innovative MedTech startups working to solve real-world medical problems, we’re watching this space...

IN SHORT

🚀 On The Up. South African Venture Capital investments are on the rise, passing the R3 billion mark for the first time since the launch of the SAVCA annual VC Survey 14 years ago, with larger investments being made in a smaller number of companies.

🥶 Dead Blue Screens. ICYMI: On Friday IT security company Crowdstrike caused a mass outage event on Windows PCs. Planes were grounded, SA’s Capitec went down, even Crowdstrike-sponsored F1 team Mercedes had blue screens during Friday’s practice session.

💰Climate Bucks. Local ClimaTech, Plentify has closed its funding round from American and African VCs. The oversubscribed funding round will be used to accelerate growth and expand internationally.

😡 Taken for a Ride. If you’ve gotten the short end of the stick by taking financial advice from local Finfluencers on TikTok, Telegram and WhatsApp, there’s good news. South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) is setting its sights on efforts to regulate financial advice on social media.

👉 The Stack. Founders need leads to build and grow their businesses. Check out our Founder’s Stack with tools like Apollo that help you find new enterprise leads and Stream that helps you create the perfect outreach to convert them to clients.

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ENGAGE

What You Missed in the TOL Community

Last Friday, we just couldn’t leave poor CrowdStrike alone for the Windows PC outage…

Coming Up This Week

• Wednesday 10-11: Office Hours, where we all log in and work together, + the whole Open Letter team is at members’ disposal.

• Our first in-person event coming soon!

• Plus: All day, every day: unlimited introductions, recruitment, service provider referrals and business-building insights.

Want to join a group of South Africans building high-value startups together? Start your free trial now!

What You Said…

We asked if your company has a website, and it’s mainly no-code…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🙅‍♂️ No, don’t need one (7%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🤩 No, lemme get a Savvy.site (23%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👩🏻‍💻 Yep, built by my school science prize-winning cousin (0)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🆆 Yep, using WordPress (23%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🎨 Yep, using some other no-code platform (34%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👾 I build everything myself (13%)

Your 2 cents…

Nice, Farhaanah, see Wix has also been expanding their product and building out a robust version for agencies, too.

Nice one, Elmethra, sure the guys at Savvy will welcome you with open arms.

Oh yes, William, there are some Open Letter team members who absolutely swear by WordPress, even though Webflow is our official affiliate. And you’re just never gonna sway them, just like PC and Mac, Pepsi and Coke…