Venture Spotlight: Syna Consultancy

The Health Entrepreneurship (HENT) Challenge’s first cohort is visiting Toronto this summer, where they are continuing their implementation phase through activities targeting business development, expanding entrepreneurial networks and facilitating exposure to potential investors. 

In the meantime, the HENT communications team caught up with the ventures from the first HENT Challenge cohort to learn more about the origins of their companies, what they’ve learned to date, and what is coming up next... 

Syna Consultancy - KENYA

Syna Consultancy was created after a conversation with the parent of child with cerebral palsy who was advocating for a hygienic and dependable bathroom solution. After noticing the lack of access to safe and dignified toilets for those who are physically challenged, Co-Founders Sylvia Nyaga and John Kemoli were driven to create an innovative sanitation solution to not only reach those with cerebral palsy, but more generally to aid physically challenged, elderly, and sick populations. Nyaga and Kemoli were faced with the obstacle of recognizing that all physically challenged populations have different needs. They addressed this obstacle by planning, designing and installing tailor-made sanitation solutions for each population while acknowledging that sanitation training is also needed alongside implementation. Syna Consultancy has obtained a utility-model for their innovative design.

What is the accomplishment to date that your team is most proud of?  
The successful transition from prototyping to final product, which is currently in the market, impacting lives and contributing towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6. Additionally, we have grown our sales by five times over the course of the last year.  

If you could give advice to another founder getting started, what would that be? 

Starting a venture comes with its share of challenges, but nothing beats the feeling of witnessing your innovation make a difference and impact lives. I would advise them to keep being resilient and continuously think outside the box. 

Looking forward, Syna Consultancy will introduce leasing of their flagship product, the Utulav toilet, to make it accessible to people with temporary disabilities and those who cannot afford the full product price. Additionally, the venture is focused on promoting inclusivity of their product by offering their expertise as consulting services to architects and construction professionals and hope to expand services to East Africa by the end of 2023. 

You can learn more about Syna Consultancy by visiting their website. 

Venture Spotlight: Vectorgram Health

The Health Entrepreneurship (HENT) Challenge’s first cohort is visiting Toronto this summer, where they are continuing their implementation phase through activities targeting business development, expanding entrepreneurial networks and facilitating exposure to potential investors. 

The HENT Communications team caught up with the ventures to learn more about the origins of their companies, what they’ve learned to date, and what is coming up next...

Vectorgram Health - KENYA

With only 200 radiologists in Kenya to serve a population of 5.5 million women who are at risk of developing breast cancer each year, Ian Omung’a, Nikita Muthuuri and Brian Mungai were inspired to create a solution for early breast cancer detection.

With 4 out of 5 Kenyan women being diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer, the mortality rate is at an all-time high. The long turn-around time for screening mammography reports due to a low radiologist-to-patient ratio is a key factor contributing to late diagnosis. 

Thus, the team of three started Vectorgram Health in 2022, which has scaled the capacity of cancer screening by up to 100 times through Artificial Intelligence-powered diagnostics assistance tools. Instead of patients waiting for weeks to receive a mammogram report, Vectorgram Health now enables radiologists to interpret up to 10,000 mammograms in 1 minute. They are currently completing clinical validation at the largest referral hospital in East and Central Africa and will soon publish study results. 

What is the accomplishment to date that your team is most proud of?   

Since their launch, Vectorgram Health is proud to have won an outstanding research award at the Deep Learning Indaba 2022 continental research conference in Tunisia for their Machine Learning research on Breast Cancer Diagnosis in  
low-data conditions

If you could give advice to another founder getting started, what would that be?  

“Get an ambitious, defining end-game goal and use it to translate your long-term ideals into your day-to-day culture. Having a larger-than-life north star to guide you and your team will be the inspiration you need when you inevitably encounter seemingly intractable problems.” 

Vectorgram Health is looking forward to expanding across the hundreds of cancer screening centres in Kenya. Their next major goal is to onboard 100 hospitals across the country in the coming months, once clinical validation is completed. 

You can learn more about Vectorgram Health by visiting their website.