Alice Muhuhu

Kenya

Founder of Aurora Health Systems, this doctor has developed an AI-powered solution for rapid cardiac diagnosis, which she plans to deploy across the continent.

In Kenya, only 6% of health centres have the medical equipment needed to detect heart disease, while the country has just 35 cardiologists for a population of more than 50 million. A doctor by profession, Alice Muhuhu trained in several countries, including Poland, where she studied cardiology. There, she saw first-hand how crucial the speed of a diagnosis can be to a patient’s survival. She herself lost her father in a road accident after emergency services arrived too late… More broadly, healthcare systems in sub-Saharan Africa tend to rely more on responding to illness than on prevention. Many people do not see a doctor until symptoms appear—and, sadly, by then it is often too late… Driven by these observations, Alice Muhuhu founded Aurora Health Systems to develop medical solutions tailored to African realities. In 2024, the start-up developed MoyoECG, a mobile, self-contained AI-assisted electrocardiography device that can operate without electricity or internet access, enabling a cardiac diagnosis to be made within minutes. The innovation earned her a place in the 2026 cohort of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, run by Britain’s Royal Academy of Engineering. The programme provides mentorship, networking opportunities and international visibility, ahead of a final scheduled for October in Johannesburg. “No life should be lost because a diagnosis came too late. Every heartbeat counts.” Now backed by sponsors including pharmaceutical group Novartis and Standard Chartered Bank, Alice Muhuhu plans to roll out Moyo—“heart” in Swahili—across the continent.