Uganda Management Institute (UMI) is proud to celebrate the international recognition of Associate Professor Pross Oluka Nagitta, who, together with the Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTS) team from the University of South Africa (UNISA), led by Professor. Marcia Mkansi, received the 2025/2026 NSTF-South32 Innovation Award. The award recognized the originality, development, and practical relevance of a digital solution designed to strengthen health supply chain coordination, culminating from more than five years of research and innovation.

Health service delivery remains one of the major challenges affecting development across Africa. Research and innovation have increasingly provided practical solutions to address these challenges and contribute to sustainable and resilient healthcare systems. The recognition of Associate Professor Oluka’s work highlights the important role that academic research plays in developing innovative solutions to improve healthcare delivery.

According to Associate Professor Oluka, the ACTS App was developed to strengthen medicine supply chain coordination by improving access to critical information that supports monitoring processes and enables informed decision-making regarding essential medicines. She explained that by addressing existing gaps within healthcare supply systems, the application enhances visibility, coordination, and operational effectiveness, thereby improving the management and distribution of essential medicines.

Beyond the healthcare sector, the application has also demonstrated broader applicability. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa have shown that the innovation has the potential to improve operational efficiency, strengthen information management, and support evidence-based decision-making across different organizational environments.

The development of the ACTS App has been a continuous journey that began in 2018 through Associate Professor Oluka’s doctoral research at the University of South Africa (UNISA). The research was undertaken to address persistent challenges affecting healthcare systems in Africa, including fragmented information flows, limited supply chain visibility, and difficulties in coordinating medicine supply chain activities. These challenges continue to affect the availability of essential medicines and the quality of healthcare delivery, particularly in developing countries. Recognizing that effective healthcare systems depend on efficient supply chains; the innovation was designed to help bridge these gaps and improve service delivery.

The application also demonstrates the value of innovation ecosystems by highlighting the importance of collaboration among universities, researchers, technology developers, and industry partners in transforming research into solutions with social and economic impact. The ACTS innovation contributes to several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) by promoting stronger healthcare systems and improved access to essential medicines; SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) by demonstrating how technology and innovation can strengthen systems, improve organizational performance, and support sustainable digital transformation; and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) by illustrating how collaboration among academic institutions, researchers, technology developers, and industry partners can accelerate the translation of research into practical solutions.

As research and innovation remain central to UMI’s mandate, Associate Professor Oluka emphasized that this international recognition demonstrates the importance of research that extends beyond academic outputs to create practical solutions for society. She noted that the ACTS App illustrates the power of collaborative research, innovation, and technology development in addressing real-world challenges while strengthening healthcare supply chain coordination, improving service delivery, and contributing to better health outcomes.

UMI celebrates this remarkable achievement, which reinforces the Institute’s commitment to research excellence, innovation, and knowledge translation. The recognition further demonstrates UMI’s contribution to generating impactful research that addresses national, regional, and global development challenges while improving the well-being of communities through innovative solutions.