Clarity, Impact and Scale were the three words that summarised the experience of our 2018/19 incubatees. When we called for submissions in 2018, we received applications from some of the country’s brilliant entrepreneurs solving meaningful problems in Africa.

Of the impressive pool of applications received, we selected E- Estate and Doctoora amongst others because their solutions were timely, addressing real problems in growing industries. In this article, we share more information about these two startups from our 2018/2019 cohort. 

E-Estate

The Head of the Federal Mortgage bank in Nigeria, Ahmed Dangiwa, put the country’s present housing deficit at 22 million units; and the bulk of that is in urban areas — Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Abuja. There have been small strides of progress attempting to reduce the deficit, taking a cue from the numerous property listing companies and new tech companies trying to bridge the gap between landlords and tenants using granular search options.

However, managing properties and residents’ needs effectively is still a tussle. Facility Managers and real estate management companies are constantly trying to improve residents living conditions and security in the most effective way.  Common problems identified are poor visitor control, haphazard communication with residents, delays in collection of estate dues, payment and slow response in fixing faulty amenities. 

E- Estate, a property tech company identified these problems and is committed to solving them. 

E- Estate is an estate management application designed exclusively for residential communities. Their mobile/ web solution helps Estate Managers coordinate their operations and interactions with residents effectively. E- Estate offers a cloud-based solution that is accessible on Android and iOS. The platform is designed to help improve the living conditions and overall communication process within residential communities. 

With E- Estate’s solution, Estate Managers receive real-time push notifications on updates, have a shorter response time to resident’s complaints and messages, maintain effective communication with residents on the go and have access to a centralized database with a dashboard that makes general estate management tasks seamless. E- Estate comes with a fully customizable option where residents can integrate services from electricians, plumbers, cooking gas suppliers and other verified vendors. 

Six months into launching their company, E- Estate joined the CcHUB incubation program and by the end of the program, it had signed up estates, Facility and Property Managers with a network of over 1,000 residential units and more properties in its pipeline. E- Estate is currently in conversation with Property Developers and other key stakeholders managing estates in high brow areas in Lagos state.

Doctoora

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends a doctor to about 600 people. Nigeria currently has about 35,000 doctors serving a country of almost 200 million people. Consequently, citizens don’t have access to quality medical care. The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) reported that about 2,000 medical workers leave the country annually to developed countries. In 2017, NMA official, Olumuyiwa Odusote said 40,000 out of the 75,000 registered Nigerian medical doctors are practising outside the country. Poor pay is one of the major reasons for this exodus by Nigeria’s qualified medical workers. Other reasons are lack of adequate infrastructure, dilapidated facilities and generally poor working conditions. 

Whilst it is evident that the Nigerian government has to improve on citizens’ health and increase the budget allocation to the health sector, which is currently at a miserly 4/6 per cent, private interventions like Doctoora is making an attempt to improve the current state of the sector. 

Doctoora is an online platform that connects patients with a wide range of vetted healthcare professionals whilst providing medical facilities, for rent, to these professionals on a pay per use basis. Healthcare practitioners ranging from Doctors, private/public healthcare facility vendors, telehealth startups and pharmacies can register on their platform and immediately connect with patients at a convenient time.

In comparison, whilst a number of existing solutions simply connect healthcare professionals to patients, Doctoora is able to introduce infrastructure to this dynamics thereby ensuring patients get quality healthcare irrespective of location. It is able to achieve this by utilizing spare capacity in existing hospitals as well as setting up its own centres where needed.

In the last year, over 150 health practitioners have registered on the platform. These include General Practitioners and specialists in areas such as Cardiology, Neurology, Dermatology, Physiotherapy, Surgery and Gynecology. In addition, these healthcare providers can now see their patients across thirty (30) locations in Lagos, Abuja and Ibadan. 

Since 2011, CcHUB has supported the growth of a community passionate about the role of technology in transforming Nigeria. To date, over one hundred and twenty (120) ideas and companies have benefited from our support through our various programs.  

We welcome startups with innovative ideas to sign up to our newsletter on our website and follow us on Twitter to get the latest information about our programs.