How The Death Of A Teenager Inspired The Design Of An Uber App For Ambulances

Michael Paul Ogbe was an SS3 student of Abuja School Of Accountancy And Computer Studies (ASACS). The only son of a widowed mother, he excelled in computer and software engineering, and arrangements had been made for him to proceed to Canada after his secondary school education. His father had died in 2005, but his mother, Miriam Nnenna Ogbe, was doing everything possible to give Michael and his sisters – Isabella, Barbara and Anita – the best training possible.

On March 1, 2017, he visited the school clinic, as he was feeling unwell, but the nurse on duty urged him to get a meal first and then return for medication. After breakfast, the 16-year-old felt better and joined his friends on the pitch: ASACS was having its inter-house sports competition, and the students had to train. He engaged in high jump and took a leap, but instead of landing on the mattress, he landed on the ground, sustaining a head injury.

He was taken to the school clinic, which was ill-equipped. He was referred to Bwari General Hospital, but an ambulance didn’t arrive in time, and by the time he got there, there was little the doctors could do to save him.

His mother accused the school of negligence, and requested for a probe of the incident, but four years later, there is nothing to show that the school obliged her. He was buried amidst tears at Apo Cemetery, Abuja.

Michael’s friends described him as “a genius who took the lead in all academic and social activities that even others were afraid of” and possessing “a great sense of curiosity and introspection which made him discover new ways of doing things.” In an interview with The Sun Newspaper, his sister Isabella described him as “athletic, involved in a lot of sporting activities.”

Of all the 36 states in Nigeria, only Lagos has an organised state-run emergency medical service and a working public safety answering point (PSAP). When accidents occur, ambulance services are hardly reachable, and even when they respond, they take a very long time to arrive.

In April 2016, 12 medical doctors and a driver from Ekiti State were involved in an accident 60 kilometres from Kaduna State, on their way to attend a National Delegate Conference of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Sokoto. It took hours before officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) could arrive with a vehicle. Six people – Tunde Aladesanmi, Ojo Taiwo, Akinyele Alex, Adeniyi James, James Ogunseye, and a man identified as Mr Ajibola – died in the accident.

According to one of the survivors, Stephen Ayosanmi, they received no adequate attention, even at the hospital.

“At the hospital, I was surprised when they said there was no doctor there”, said Ayosanmi, in an interview with Nigeria’s Vanguard Newspaper. “I was even telling the nurses, ‘ok give me a pain reliever and let me put you through on how to resuscitate that man that was lying near me.’ But none of them attended to us.”

Michael Paul Ogbe may be gone, but the circumstances surrounding his death have inspired one of his closest friends, Isaac Somtochukwu Jideonwor, to build a platform aimed at improving emergency health services in Nigeria. Jideonwor, an 18-year-old web developer, writer and UI/UX designer, has designed an app called Aider, which aims to connect ambulances to those who need them.

Aider, launched in 2021, is an app that allows people to take charge of emergency situations and save lives with their mobile phones, by allowing them to order an ambulance, offer directions to hospitals nearby, send SOS messages, and talk to doctors. With provisions for first aid tips and a user-friendly interface, the app seeks to bridge the gap between emergency service providers and the rest of the population for whom the need for medical attention can arise at any time. It’s like Uber, but for ambulances.

Jideonwor is no stranger to building things. In 2018 he founded Techcrest, a platform that focused on publishing feature articles related to technology and business in Africa. In 2019, he sold off Techcrest and founded Imaginact, an initiative which has imparted design skills to more than 200 teenagers across the country for free through Imaginact’s SteamUp initiative.

In an interview with Neusroom, Jideonwor shared elaborate details on his childhood, his career trajectory, and his inspirations for building the Aider app.

“I was born in Lagos but grew up in Abuja. I come from a strict middle-class family of 5, and I am the second born of three children in the family. Growing up, I and my siblings weren’t even allowed to step out of the house, except we were running errands or it was something that has to do with school or church. I believe this style of training made me introverted. I had my primary and secondary school education at Abuja School Of Accountancy And Computer Studies (ASACS). I graduated from secondary school in 2017.”

On how he ventured into tech and UI/UX design, Jideonwor says, “Funny thing is, I actually started with learning how to code, you know, HTML, CSS and JS. At age 16, I did a project where I designed the front-end of a social media platform. Along the line, I really fell in love with design. My elder brother, who codes, was one of the people who actually made me love tech; he always loved to introduce me to tech-related news and content since I was 6 years old. I remember sneaking with him into my dad’s room back then to use his laptop as it was more powerful than the home computer. After trying to get into the university in 2017 without success, my love for tech increased. I found that I could solve problems and earn money in the process. It was something I could do without needing to interact much with people.”

Jideonwor explains that the idea of the Aider App came to him in 2019, two years after the demise of his friend, Michael Paul Ogbe. “It’s a painful experience and I believe none of my mates will ever forget the experience. I will be brief with it. He died during a high jump exercise during our school’s inter-house sport just a few months before we wrote our WAEC. He sustained a head injury, and just like that, he was gone. Michael was the best science student in the school, he was a computer whiz kid. He wanted to work as a computer security expert in government or a telecommunications company. He would have survived if he was immediately taken to the hospital.”

On challenges faced in creating the app, Jideonwor notes that he had to take the Nigerian reality into consideration. “Getting ambulances and good products for the app’s store was part of the challenges faced, but after posting on Twitter and LinkedIn, I got huge support from a good number of people. I have a team of other young Nigerians who want to solve the emergency response problems in Nigeria too. We are just 5 for now.”

When asked about public reception and possible collaborations with public bodies, Jideonwor sounded quite confident, stating that offers were already rolling in.

“I have started receiving offers for investment opportunities and offers to sell off the idea already”, says Jideonwor. “The reception (of the app) is very nice, but one thing we are trying to crack is how to earn from it, in order to cover costs of operation without affecting our goals of driving change. I hope the app actually drives investment into Nigeria’s emergency response industry and solves Nigeria’s emergency service problems. For now, I am not even looking at help coming from the public sector. I’m looking more at the private sector.”

The creation of the Aider app complements the efforts of a few private organisations working to see that emergency services in Nigeria improve significantly. Flying Doctors Nigeria (FDN), launched by Olamide Orekunrin in 2007, specialises in medico-logistics services, medical training and ambulances for aircraft. With offices in Lagos and Port Harcourt, the organisation also provides helicopters for corporate clients running large events, and families can set up a membership plan for private emergency health care. Flying Doctors has partnered with some Nigerian hospitals with a view to specialising in a particular type of health emergency: in Lagos, it has a partnership with Lagoon Hospital (for burns and orthopaedic injuries) and Reddington Hospital (for heart problems).

Critical Rescue International (CRI), founded in 2001, started out as a paramedic and emergency services provider, and has since expanded the scope of its operations to laboratory screenings, occupational health, medical transport and evacuation. With headquarters and offices across the country, it specialises in air and ground ambulance transportation, primary healthcare and telemedicine.

Lifebank, launched in 2016, is on a mission to save lives across Africa by delivering medical supplies like blood, medicines and oxygen to hospitals, using technology and a multi-modal distribution platform. Its operations currently focus on Nigeria and Kenya, and it has delivered over 35,187 units of blood to hospitals and screening centres. Lifebank has also partnered with hospitals like St. Nicholas Hospital and Reddington Hospital. 

It would be interesting to see how the Aider app works in a country like Nigeria, with its attendant infrastructural problems. In a city like Lagos, it would be tricky to use the platform, given the nature of traffic and the state of the roads.  Even at that, the creation of the Aider app is a step in the right direction, and if all the right moves are made, particularly with regard to collaborations and partnerships, we could be witnessing a revolution as far as health care in Nigeria is concerned.