NAIROBI has three million inhabitants, 20 emergency facilities, and around 100 ambulances— well above the WHO’s recommendation for a city of its size. But the disjointed emergency system was costing lives with wait times of two hours or more. Cue Kenyan start-up, Flare, which launched commercially in 2018. Uber was the inspiration for Flare’s business model, tweaked to fit the African context. Flare has united the country’s fragmented independent operators into a cooperative network of more than 400 ambulances. It managed to slash emergency response times to an average of 20 minutes and has already completed 350 life-saving rescues. Flare’s digitised emergency response system features dispatch services, GPS tracking, resource management and coordination, and direct communication with patients and hospitals. For life-saving efforts of more haste and less waste, the BV judges present Flare with the 2019 Most Innovative Emergency Response System (Eastern Africa) award.
