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Brian Gitta, from Uganda, is the CEO and co-founder of ‘thinkIT Limited’, a Ugandan IT company. He has developed a mobile application that uses light sensors to diagnose malaria in 60 seconds. This application is known as Matibabu which means Medical Center in Swahili.
The Matiscope (or the matibabu digital microscope) detects in each patient the shape, color and concentration of red blood cells. This is possible because red blood cells are biconcave. And when red cells are contaminated with the malaria plasmodium, light scattering properties are affected, as well as their biochemical properties. In other words, different wave lengths enable the application to pick different intensities and see if a patient is malaria positive or negative.
Brian Gitta is a pure product of the Ugandan educational system as he graduated from the famous Makerere University in computer science in 2015. He worked closely with fellow Ugandans Joshua Businge Mulessi, Simon Lubambo and Josiah Kavuma to accomplish this feat.