Important Innovations Collection

Magawa Service Rat Gets UK Gold Medal Service Award                                             Source: PDSA & Magawa Cambodia: Rat Detects 39 Landmines & Saves Countless Lives  This is one of the most remarkable animal service stories to date. A trained rat, called Magawa, has detected 39 unexploded landmines in Cambodia, along with 28 unexploded ordinances, and has saved countless lives.  This incredible service animal was trained in Belgium by the charity APOPO. The organization trains rats to detect the scent of explosives and alert their human handlers.  Very Smart Animal Magawa is an African Giant Pouched Rat. The species is very intelligent and easy to train.  Every day for the past seven years, Magawa has been on landmine patrol in Cambodia, which has millions of unexploded landmines.  Magawa has cleared a lot of ...

Award Winning System for Rapidly Dispensing Medication Source:  Innovator Neo Hutiri and his Pelebox Innovation from South Africa The Pelebox smart locker system is designed to rapidly dispense medicine to people with chronic conditions.  A wall of digitally controlled lockers is filled with medicine for individual patients.  The patients are given a PIN to gain access to their medicine.  It's time saving, convenient innovation that meets a big need for millions of patients. Royal Academy of Engineering Award Winner The innovation and innovator behind it Neo Hutiri just won the Royal Academy of Engineering's 2019 Africa Prize.  The Pelebox innovation is an answer to a big problem.  In South Africa, going to a clinic to get prescription medication takes three hours plus.  The Pelebox smart locker system reduces the time from an average of 3.6 hours to 36 seconds, giving patients much easier access to their medications.   Additionally, i...