ZuriCare

ZuriCare Logo

Inspiration

Across Eswatini and the wider Eastern and Southern Africa region, we observed that healthcare and public services are organised nationally, while people are increasingly mobile. Refugees, migrants, asylum seekers, and cross-border patients often struggle to access healthcare due to lack of trusted identity and fragmented medical records. As students studying software engineering, we were inspired by these real challenges within our communities and saw Digital ID as an opportunity to promote inclusion, dignity, and continuity of care. The Africa Digital ID Hackathon motivated us to explore how MOSIP and Digital Public Infrastructure could be applied to solve this problem in a realistic and policy-aligned way.

What it does

ZuriCare is proposed as a MOSIP-enabled digital health and public service identity platform designed to support mobile populations. It aims to provide a secure, portable, and consent-based identity layer that complements existing national IDs, refugee documentation, and hospital identifiers. With user consent, ZuriCare would allow healthcare providers and authorised officials to verify identity and access minimal, life-saving health information, while full medical records remain securely with healthcare institutions.

How we built it

During the ideation phase, we focused on designing the system architecture, user flow, and policy alignment rather than building a live system. We studied the MOSIP platform, Digital Public Infrastructure principles, and healthcare workflows in low-resource settings. We designed ZuriCare to be offline-first, privacy-preserving, and interoperable, using QR codes and lightweight digital credentials. Our proposal was refined through research, team collaboration, and alignment with the hackathon’s submission template and judging criteria.

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge was balancing strong innovation with realism. We had to ensure that our idea did not overclaim technical or policy readiness while still demonstrating impact. Designing a cross-border solution also required careful consideration of data privacy, consent, and regulatory differences across countries. Another challenge was fitting a complex, multi-sector idea into strict word limits while keeping it clear and compelling.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of developing a solution that responsibly combines healthcare, refugee inclusion, and public services into a single, coherent Digital ID use case. Our team successfully aligned the proposal with MOSIP, privacy-by-design principles, and African realities. We are also proud of our collaboration as students from Eswatini, contributing an inclusive regional perspective to a continental challenge.

What we learned

Through this project, we gained a deeper understanding of Digital ID systems, MOSIP, and Digital Public Infrastructure. We learned how technology, policy, and social impact must work together for solutions to be effective. We also improved our skills in research, system design, teamwork, and communicating complex ideas clearly within constraints.

What's next for ZuriCare

If selected for the next stage, we plan to further refine the solution by developing a detailed system architecture, exploring the MOSIP Sandbox, and designing a simple prototype user flow. We would also seek mentorship to better understand regulatory considerations and potential partnerships with healthcare institutions and NGOs, with the long-term goal of piloting ZuriCare in real-world settings.