Join us in celebrating our exceptional Co-founder, Khanyisile Magagula, who, alongside her team Dawa Health, has been crowned the DS4Health Africa Ideathon 2025 CHAMPIONS!
Khanyisile, who also serves as our Events Coordinator and Research & Innovation Lead, led a powerhouse team that not only secured 1st Place but also clinched the Audience Choice Award from over 30 submissions at the Deep Learning Indaba 2025’s DS4Health Live Pitch.
The Winning Solution: AI for Equitable Cervical Cancer Screening
The DS4Health Ideathon is dedicated to advancing data science for critical African healthcare challenges. The Dawa Health team’s winning solution directly addresses a major gap in care:
- The Innovation: A revolutionary WhatsApp chatbot for cervical cancer detection, which provides real-time screening support and healthcare guidance.
- The Tech: It integrates Google’s cutting-edge MedSigLIP foundation model with Gemini-powered Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), enabling a technically excellent and highly accessible solution.
- The Impact: Born from a powerful “why” the story of a Zambian teacher diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer despite a low-risk lifestyle the project is dedicated to improving early disease detection and accessibility for underserved communities. The team has already piloted the solution with 5+ clinics in a Zambia AI-Powered CaCx Screening Program.
The Judges praised the team’s approach for its technical excellence, real-world validation, and deep understanding of the African healthcare context.
A Collaborative Victory
This monumental achievement highlights the power of African innovation backed by global collaboration:
| Team Member | Role | Country |
| Khanyisile Magagula | ML Engineer (AI Eswatini Co-founder) | Eswatini |
| Tafadzwa Munzwa, M.D. | Medical Doctor (Dawa Health Co-founder) | Zambia |
| Kudzai Mwedzi | Data Scientist | South Africa |
| Tariro Munzwa | Software Engineer | Zimbabwe |
- Mentorship: The team was mentored by Mercy Asiedu, a Senior Research Scientist at Google.
- Resources: They were awarded Google Cloud Credits to ensure the scalable deployment of their solution on cloud infrastructure.
- The Prize: The victory comes with $3,000 and a fully sponsored ticket to the Deep Learning Indaba 2026 in Nigeria!
Congratulations, Khanyisile, and the entire Dawa Health team! You are making an undeniable difference by putting Data Ethics & AI Safety into impactful practice. We are immensely proud to have you lead the way in African AI innovation.
#AIEswatini #KhanyisileMagagula #DawaHealth #DS4Health #AIEngineer #Innovation #CervicalCancerScreening #GeminiAPI #AfricaTech #DeepLearningIndaba
