ALLO ALLO MOMS connects low-income mothe

Richard is passionate about Africa, about enabling entrepreneurship and impact innovation globally.

Having visited over 25 African countries, he founded the Health Tech Africa Initiative leverages 4th industrial technologies to transform healthcare in Africa

Richard's 15 years of experience spans both the startup, citizen and corporate sectors.
Through his work, Richard has been honored with over 40 recognitions and fellowships worldwide.
Notably inducted as one of the 50 Most Influential People in West Africa 2018 List by Influences Mag Senegal, a 2017 Young Leader of the French-African Foundation, the 2012 Orange African Social Entrepreneur of the Year and an Ashoka fellow.

He is pursuing an Executive MBA with a specialization in Data Analytics at the Quantic School of Technology and Business (USA). Draper University Alumni in Tech Entrepreneurship (USA). 

Urban low-income MOMS do not know where to turn to when they have an early health-related issue. 

In African cities, late hospital presentations are a silent killer. On the other hand, 94% of African internet users (over 450 million) use heavily messaging apps. 

We have built a Facebook channel and WhatsApp channel that allows moms and women to access existing local, safe community resources they need to stay healthy. We make it easy for moms to speak to a doctor online for free, find affordable and welcoming hospitals, affordable hygiene products and baby supplies, and much more

Late hospital presentations is a silent killer for African dwellers, especially women and mothers in Africa. It is hardly quantifiable since no major study has been undertaken, nevertheless is highly acknowledged by the medical profession in African cities as a cause for significant morbidity and mortality.

Women visit hospitals too late or infrequently for many reasons: stigma attached to explaining a health condition, affordability to pay for a doctor visit, poor quality care (waiting time in public hospitals exceeds 4 hours in Cote d'Ivoire which means a day of income forgone and poor treatment by hospital staff).

1.9 billion women in low and middle-income countries own their own phones. 94% use messaging apps, making them a new formidable tool for women's health.

ALLO makes it easy for low-income women to find and access community resources to remain healthy: they can book affordable doctor visits, find affordable hygiene products/baby supplies, participate in mom's group activities through Facebook messenger/WhatsApp and pay for these through dedicated mobile money codes.

We started with a single service: assist low income mothers with booking doctor visits at affordable and welcoming hospitals. 

On our messenger/WhatsApp channels, a mother can chat or make a voice note for free with a doctor to explain her condition — someone to turn to and removing the stigma with anonymous conversation. If the condition explained requires a hospital visit, she chooses date/time and use her phone to pay via dedicated mobile money codes. The mother receives SMS (reservation number) which she presents at hospital, and so our reservation system prevents excessive wait time. 

We have partnered with a growing network of affordable hospitals in Abidjan (the doctor visit is less than 4 dollars compared with 26 dollars) and provided them with a tech platform to accept our bookings. We have performed 2,600 doctor chats and facilitated 518 doctor visits so far.

Beyond this, our messaging apps channels will accommodate the new services mentioned above.

The idea came from my partner pregnancy and the difficulties witnessed as an uninsured family. 

In Cote d'Ivoire, every year there are more than 700,000 pregnancies while the poverty rate is 46%. 

The team at ALLO engaged with 62 women through focus group interviews, shared a survey with our community of now 37,000 members and continuously receiving doctor feedback from the free chats with women.

Our solution significantly lowers the barriers to seeking care by assisting low income mothers to seek no-stigma-attached, initial help through a free online doctor chat; book affordable doctor visits (easier discovery of proximity affordable hospitals for newly pregnant mothers) and we are expanding our solution as a platform to easily find and access community resources linked to healthcare with a planned facebook bot.  

In 10 months, we have performed 2,600 doctor chats and facilitated 518 doctor visits so far, thus clearly addressing a need.

Women's health is often an underappreciated issue in developing countries, moresoever in Africa. We are leading the transformational charge to change this.

The idea came from my partner pregnancy and the difficulties witnessed as an uninsured family. 

In Cote d'Ivoire, every year there are more than 700,000 pregnancies while the poverty rate is 46%.

After carefully listening women (through field observations, focus groups), I decided to explore and implement our solution.

I am passionate about health tech and the outstanding potential for impact that it could unleash. I founded the Health Tech Africa Initiative that looks at implementing tech solutions to transform healthcare in Africa, especially for the poor.   

I have been involved as a social innovator for 14 years and a tech innovator for the last 10 years. I have been involved in the health tech sector for the last 2 years. 

In 2008 in Bangalore, India I created ‘My World, My Choice!’ a school environmental education program. The program went really well and then a few days to the closing ceremony, a series of terrorist blasts occur in the city – questioning the opportunity to hold this ceremony, reinforced by the fact that some partners declined their contributions. While at work, I took days off to meet my team (reassuring me of the relevance of the ceremony and pointing to the extra security required), together find new logistics partners and elsewhere to be imaginative (we used discarded rice bags as goodies bags). The closing ceremony took place in one of our partnering schools with hundreds of students/parents present, and remain to this day a memory I especially cherish.  

I founded from scratch and led 3 organizations with tangible results: in India in 2008 ‘My World, My Choice!’ a school environmental education program that taught 4,000 high school students in 4 countries; in Morocco in 2010 the AIESEC Alumni Sustainability Network, a body group with over 600 sustainability professionals and TEDxAbidjan which went on to become the biggest TEDx event in French-speaking Africa. In all of these ventures, I had to mobilize networks of people and lead.

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ALLO leverages messaging apps to transform women's health in Africa. 

Although some solutions use messaging apps for maternal health, they limit themselves with access to information (receiving health tips, tracking fertility...). 

We have extended the value proposition of our approach to be an end-to-end solution that integrates discovery and access of local healthcare resources beyond information access (through messaging apps), payment (dedicated mobile money codes) and tech provided to hospitals or tech providers (back-office software).

We help low income women and mothers find and access local healthcare resources to stay healthy. We reduce stigma to ask, late and infrequent hospital presentations by leveraging the power of messaging apps and mobile money.

In 5 years, we aim to help 2,000,000 women and mothers find and access community resources for affordable and quality care. 

We will scale up through geographical expansion of our service (targeting Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia). We will use network effects and our marketing ability to reach new beneficiaries.

Financial capacity to expand and scale up

Navigating legal restrictions in expanding to new geographies: these restrictions may add GDPR-like burden, may limit the services users can access — but from our understanding of the legal environment in the countries we currently operate in or target, will not shutdown our service.

Financial capacity to expand and scale up: so far, we have raised funding which allowed us to operate. We plan to keep fundraising a combination of patient capital and grants.

Navigating legal restrictions in expanding to new geographies: we will adapt our service according to each country legal framework and budget the amount necessary for this. We will also advocate for change where necessary. In Cote d'Ivoire for example, we are creating the "Abidjan Healthy City" bi-monthly dinner where we invite key policymakers and the health tech community to build understanding and engage. Our first dinner is scheduled in August.

- A growing network of hospitals with affordable pricing where our beneficiaries can consult.

- Grant recipient of the Amplify Change Fund UK and the Merieux Foundation France, using this funding to deploy our operations

Revenue is/will be generated from:

• Earning an average of 1 $ for each doctor appointment booking 

• Earning 15% of commission for other services, discounted feminine hygiene and personal care products accessed through our service

Primarily selling our services to make a breakeven and a margin in the mid to long term.

We intend to raise patient capital and secure donations/grants through specific initiatives built around ALLO offering.

We raised grant funding totalling 40,000 euros (approximately 45,000 USD) from Amplify Change UK and the Merieux Foundation France.

Since our pilot has been free, we have not recorded revenue yet.

We are seeking an equity investment of 250,000 USD to be raised within the next 6 months.

30,000 USD (from June to December 2020)

We are applying to the Elevate Prize to build partnership opportunities that can be instrumental in moving the needle for us, and for possible financial support and visibility to boost pur work

We are open for partnerships with MIT initiatives and external partnerd. They can advance our solution with funding introductions/facilitations, healthcare expertise and the areas highlighted for partnership above.

No specific names in mind