Vula Medical wins FNB App of the Year for transforming rural healthcare

The 2025 FNB App of the Year Awards was in Johannesburg Thursday December 4. 2025, bringing together the brightest minds in South African and African tech. The event showcased innovation across the continent, with leading developers, industry experts, partners, media and sponsors celebrating the creativity and homegrown talent shaping Africa’s digital future.

The 2025 FNB App of the Year Award went to Vula Medical, a medical referral app developed by Dr William Mapham. Mapham had had the idea for the app while working at the Vula Emehlo Eye Clinic in rural Swaziland where he experienced, first-hand, the difficulties faced by rural health workers when they needed specialist advice. This secure app connects primary healthcare workers with specialists, making it easier to manage patient referrals and get specialist advice. The app is designed to improve healthcare in rural and underserved areas by allowing health workers to share patient information, including text and images, through custom referral forms. It facilitates communication and remote guidance and greatly reduces unnecessary travel for patients to ensure that they receive the right care at the right time.

The impact of the Vula app is clear and well-documented. Numerous health workers who use the platform have published studies demonstrating its value, with key findings showing that in nearly 30% of cases, patients seen at rural clinics do not need to travel to a specialist. Instead, they receive specialist input directly through Vula, a game-changing outcome that saves countless patients from long, costly and often stressful journeys.

To date, the platform facilitated more than 2.5 million patient referrals, connecting healthcare professionals across over 2 300 public and private facilities. It also supports 105 different categories of health workers, reflecting its wide reach and ability to streamline communication and care coordination across South Africa’s health system.

Over the past 14 years, the App of the Year Awards have become the continent’s premier celebration of app development. The platform continues to spotlight groundbreaking solutions that transform industries, improve lives, and enable economic inclusion, across multiple categories including consumer, enterprise, health, education, agriculture, financial and more.

These awards sit within a broader ecosystem of FNB-led initiatives aimed at growing the talent pipeline, supporting digital transformation, and empowering young developers across the continent.

This year alone, over 33 000 young people graduated as full-stack developers through the FNB App Academy - a fully funded, intensive nine-week coding programme that equips aspiring tech entrepreneurs with real, employable skills to develop full-scale applications and platforms.

At the end of October, FNB also hosted Africa’s largest hackathon which saw over 10 000 participants aiming to solve some of Africa’s most pressing social challenges within 72 hours of high-impact, purpose-driven innovation.

To date, the App of the Year platform has unearthed some of South Africa’s biggest digital success stories, including Eskom Se Push, Naked Insurance, Pineapple Insurance, Checkers Sixty60 and more recently, last year’s FNB App of the Year Winner, Matric Live - brands that have scaled rapidly, attracted major investment, and reshaped everyday digital living. 

“The FNB App of the Year Awards continue to nurture and unearth African innovation and technology, uncovering some of our best-known apps and bringing together different sectors of society to solve a variety of social, economic, and business needs. Winners rapidly gain recognition and the opportunity to attract funding,” says Janis Robson, Business Development Head at FNB. “By supporting developers and start-ups, we are driving innovation, creating jobs, and contributing to the country's economic growth”.

Ellen Fischat, founder of Story Room, a social enterprise specialising in inclusive digital solutions and socio-economic impact programs, has been an App of the Year judge since 2017. She says that there has been a noticeable increase in AI use in apps, particularly in health tech, with developers creatively adapting advanced technology to African contexts, not just to scale or generate profit, but to benefit communities and ensure users understand its value.

"Social impact is what I love most about the App of the Year competition. I judge many startup competitions and hackathons across Africa and Europe, and what I love about South African app solutions is that social impact is very important - it’s in our DNA. It’s also beautiful to see how the FNB App Academy stimulates and supports the critical thinking and solution-finding that we need," Fischat says.

Another judge, Gareth Tresling, Head of Experience Engineering at Immersion, agrees that another very noticeable trend this year was the rise of AI companions and assistants across multiple categories. “Although many of these features are in an early stage, they signal an emerging ambition to integrate”.

“Many apps attempted to tackle systemic issues such as community safety, school-parent communication, localised nutrition, and public transport accessibility. While execution quality varied, the focus on solving meaningful problems that matter to South Africans was a clear standout theme,” says another judge, Gareth Tresling, Head of Experience Engineering at Immersion.

Fellow FNB App of the Year judge, Jeff Manda, Digital Lead at Brave, reiterates the strong focus on solving real problems, especially in education, compliance and financial access. “Some entries really surprised me. A few teams went deep on offline support, accessibility and building for real-world constraints. You can see when people design with intention, and it stands out”.

The 2025 FNB App of the Year category winners are:

• Best Consumer Solution: Mr D
• Best Enterprise Solution: Droppa
• Best Hackathon Solution: Usagey
• Best Gaming Solution: Recess
• Best Health Solution: Vula Medical
• Best Agricultural Solution: FarmWise
• Best Educational Solution: d6 School Communicator
• Breakthrough Developer of the Year: CPF Method
• Best Financial Solution: Stokvel Marketplace Powered by StokFella
• Most Innovative Solution: iER (Integrated Emergency Response)
• Best South African Solution: iER (Integrated Emergency Response)
• The Accenture Reinvention Award: Scenda