Web Summit announces Lalibela Global-Networks as PITCH winner

- Ethiopian medtech startup Lalibela Global-Networks crowned as the winner of Web Summit's PITCH competition

LISBON, Dec. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PITCH, in partnership with KPMG, brings the world's most promising startups together to compete. PITCH was held on Web Summit's proprietary conference platform, with 700 out of the 2,500 attending startups competing in front of  judges that included Faber's Alexandre Barbosal, Acrew Capital's Theresia Gouw, and B Capital Gro's Rashmi Gopinath.

This year's PITCH winner, the Ethiopian startup Lalibela Global-Networks, has developed a product, ABAY-CHR, which digitises hospital management processes in order to help save African hospitals hundreds of thousands of dollars in paper supply per year, alleviate process "friction", and enable efficient care for patients in Africa. In Ethiopia, the startup has already digitised 1.2 million patient records.

"Hospitals in Africa spend thousands of dollars on paper supply and processes that are painful and expensive for patients. ABAY-CHR low-code digital health solution enables efficient data management." - said Dr Wuleta Lemma, co-founder and CEO of Lalibela Global-Networks.

"We are honoured to win PITCH. I have worked to change the African healthcare system for the last 28 years. I am determined to make sure that even the poor in Africa can get the services that most of us can get in western and eastern countries."

"For me, winning PITCH is a lifetime achievement. We built ABAY even before COVID-19. Now COVID-19 has made it even more important that villages, and private and government clinics, can use it for their patients and doctors in Africa. COVID has shown we all need a secure medical record. I have always said it is a human right." 

"Winning PITCH will change how we will expand in Africa, and will show our product to the rest of the world. Thank you – not from me, but from all those mothers and children, and patients, in Africa that need digital health solutions."

Lalibela Global-Networks attended Web Summit as part of IMPACT, Web Summit's tech for good programme. They won against Rheaply, from the US, and the UK-based SwIDch.

This is the third time in a row that a medtech startup has won PITCH. Nutrix, the Swiss needle-free device for diabetics won PITCH at Web Summit 2019. Polish glucose-monitoring startup GlucoActive was announced as the winner of PITCH at Collision from Home in June.

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