CAPE Town-based company Sea Monster will receive a sub-grant of about $100 000 (R1.4 million) to develop their idea to combat Covid-19 and vaccine misinformation.
This comes after the company was selected as one of the three winners of the US-Africa Tech Challenge for their innovative approach of using games and animation to combat Covid-19 and vaccine misinformation.
Sea Monster provides platforms for game development services, as well as augmented reality and virtual reality solutions.
For the challenge, Sea Monster proposed using a series of games, animations, and quizzes on their Lighthouse platform, to create a safe space where people can engage with information to help participants bust myths and identify fake news and misinformation.
The platform is based on the concept that people learn better when they are actively engaged with the content.
According to Sea Monster, the US-Africa Tech Challenge is sponsored by the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), which advances the development of promising technologies that offer innovative solutions to help expose, understand, and counter propaganda and disinformation within Africa.
Sea Monster was one of eight finalists who presented their solutions to an audience of government, civil society and private sector stakeholders.
Sea Monster director of business development Soraiya Verjee said: “The funding from this award will allow us to offer our solution to any public or private sector organisation to supplement and complement their vaccine-related communications programmes.”
According to Sea Monster, Lighthouse, which was launched in South Africa this week, is not an application, but an innovative digital engagement platform built using Amazon Web Services (AWS) systems.
“It has been optimised for use in low-income contexts and countries. It is functional across a range of internet-enabled mobile devices, including basic smartphones, and is optimised to be data-light,” it said.
“This makes it perfectly suited for use across Africa, where it could be used to target young people and community healthcare workers,” the company added.
Sea Monster CEO Glenn Gillis added: “We are hugely honoured to have won this award. We have worked hard to develop Lighthouse as a platform and are thrilled that it can now be used as part of the important and ongoing fight against Covid-19. We are also excited to see how we could partner with or complement the work of the other two winners, AIfluence, and Congo Check to amplify our impact.”
TECH