Engineering innovation

Neo Hutiri

Neo Hutiri (MEng 2015) is the first South African to have won the prestigious Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK. Hutiri and his team at Technovera, a social impact enterprise, developed Pelebox, a smart locker system designed to dispense medicine to patients with chronic conditions. Healthcare workers place prescription refills into the lockers and the Pelebox technology sends patients a one-time PIN to open the locker. This quick solution (an average of 22 seconds for collection) reduces queues at public healthcare facilities. It also helps track patient compliance.

“Winning the Africa Prize is a massive achievement for us,” said Hutiri. “We can now ramp up our manufacturing efforts using the prize money [£25 000]. The networks we are part of will also be instrumental for the growth of our business.”

Hutiri first started thinking about solving the queueing problem when he experienced the long wait at a public clinic for his own TB medication. Pelebox also won the 2016 #HackJozi Challenge and is a member of Wits’ Tshimologong technology precinct.