Roddiyyat Taiwo is using AI to revolutionise preventive healthcare access across Africa with OpenHealth.
Nasirudeen Roddiyyat Taiwo is a Nigerian medical student, data scientist, and machine learning developer using artificial intelligence to transform healthcare access in Africa. Frustrated by her own experience with repeated clinic visits for stress-related skin issues and the lack of simple, personalised tools to guide basic health decisions, she co-founded OpenHealth, a preventive healthtech platform built to solve a problem millions of Africans face every day: uncertainty about when and how to seek care.
About OpenHealth
OpenHealth is designed as an AI-powered digital triage system that helps users understand their symptoms and make informed decisions before health issues escalate. Rather than react to illness, the platform empowers users to prevent it. It analyses symptoms, provides personalised recommendations, and guides individuals on whether to visit a hospital, consult a primary care provider, or take self-care measures. OpenHealth aims to reduce healthcare costs, lower misdiagnoses, and ease pressure on already overstretched health systems by focusing on early detection and education.
Built by Africans for Africans, OpenHealth incorporates context-specific healthcare data to deliver recommendations tailored to local realities. It directly addresses the gaps in Africa’s fragmented and under-resourced healthcare infrastructure by making basic health advice accessible, accurate, and affordable. So far, the platform has grown from a prototype into a real solution with users on its waitlist. Taiwo and her team have secured credibility through startup competitions and strategic partnerships with healthcare firms, helping validate their mission in the healthtech space.
Alongside building OpenHealth, the innovator works as a business analyst at a major hospital chain in Abuja. Her role gives her a front-row view into healthcare system inefficiencies and the kind of data-driven insights that can bridge service gaps. This dual experience – working both within a hospital and at the intersection of tech and care – shapes her understanding of what healthcare in Africa truly needs.
Roddiyyat Taiwo wants to empower individuals to take charge of their health without relying solely on hospital visits by focusing on early detection and education. Her broader vision is to digitise preventive healthcare across Africa and make accurate health guidance accessible to underserved populations. She believes the future of African healthcare must be proactive, affordable, and tailored to solve African problems and that AI has a central role to play in making that future possible.
