UNAM student develops AI app to  detect brain tumours

By: Valeria Handobe

A University of Namibia (Unam) final-year Computer Science student has developed an AI-powered application to detect and classify brain tumours from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans.

Douglas Mashonganyika developed the free app, the Medalgo application, as part of his final-year research project.

Mashonganyika said his childhood brain tumour diagnosis inspired him to create the Medalgo to save people’s lives.

“The inspiration that I got from this is a personal one because before I was three years old, I think it was shortly before I was three, two years and eleven months, I got a brain tumour. This doctor initially thought that it was a viral infection, so he dismissed it. My mother luckily, due to her motherly instincts, decided to take me to another person to get a second opinion, who then found the tumour in my brain.  Luckily, it was found just in time for it to be removed.

Had it been found any later, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.  So, I’ve created this App to act as that second opinion that saved my life many years ago and can hopefully save other people’s lives right now,” remarked Mashonganyika.

His supervisor, Dr Nalina Suresh, commended his work, noting its potential to enhance healthcare access in the country, especially in rural areas.

“ So I thought it’s very needed in Namibia, as there are no mobile hospitals in the rural region, and they lack a lot of specialists. Yeah, so that’s where I gave him a lot of domains, and developed some applications which help wherever there are some gaps, small, small gaps in the field of medicine.  And especially when we go to the hospitals, when they have the images, even today they do it manually. The doctors analyses, diagnoses the images manually, which may lead to errors, and it may lack the accuracy of the diagnosis,”stated Suresh.

Currently, in its final stage of development, Medalgo is set to go live after Mashonganyika’s final presentation on November 14. 

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