From Viral Meme to Lifesaving Innovation: JKUAT Students Digitize Kenya’s Famous ‘Purple Book’
Now, five students from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) have reimagined it for the digital age – and their idea has already won national recognition.
Photo: Courtesy.
What Kenyans online jokingly call the ultimate pregnancy confirmation – the little purple book – is now at the centre of a groundbreaking health innovation that could save thousands of mothers’ lives.
The Mother and Child Health Handbook, popularly known as the purple book, recently became an unlikely star on TikTok and Instagram. In countless viral skits, a woman walks into a hospital convinced she has typhoid or malaria after Googling her symptoms, only to walk out holding a purple book – a sure sign she is pregnant.
Behind the humour, however, lies one of Kenya’s most critical medical documents. For decades, the book has helped mothers track antenatal visits, labour details, postnatal care and their baby’s immunization schedule until all mandatory vaccines are completed.
Now, five students from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) have reimagined it for the digital age – and their idea has already won national recognition.
The team, known as Mama na Mtoto+, emerged winners of the first-ever hackathon held during the inaugural Post-Partum Haemorrhage Conference in Nairobi, beating other innovators to take home Sh300,000 to scale their project.
“We are so excited to take home this award as the first-ever recipients,” said Tanya K’Opiyo, the team’s lead, a Medical Biochemistry student at JKUAT.
Tanya and her colleagues – Mark Njeru (Research Lead), Xavier Sanya, Faith Mutanu and Tasha K’Opiyo, an incoming nursing student – said they were inspired after realizing the limitations of the physical book.
“The purple booklet works well during clinic visits. But once the mother leaves the facility, routine follow-up becomes difficult. A community health volunteer may not know when a mother is experiencing problems because they are not always with her,” said Mark Njeru.
To understand the gaps better, the team visited a health facility in Kitengela, where they interviewed pregnant mothers, nurses and community health volunteers. They found that while the book is effective inside the hospital, it becomes just a document to carry around once at home. It can also be lost, damaged by water, or torn.
Their solution is a mobile application with a USSD code option for mothers without smartphones or internet. Once a mother gets a positive pregnancy test, a clinician advises her to download the app and log her details.
From there, the app does more than store records. It sends reminders for antenatal appointments, flags early warning signs, and provides emergency guidance.
“When a mother taps on a danger symptom such as heavy bleeding, an alert is instantly sent to a clinician who has access to a real-time dashboard. The partner is also notified via SMS. All this happens in under three seconds, and this is the future that will save mothers’ lives,” explained Xavier Sanya, a third-year Medical Biochemistry student.
The platform also tackles stigma facing adolescent mothers, who studies show often skip clinics. It features an anonymized chatbot that connects them privately to clinicians and an educational section tailored for first-time young mums.
Tanya said the vision aligns with the Ministry of Health’s EWENE initiative – Every Woman, Every Newborn, Everywhere – aimed at reducing maternal and newborn deaths.
After the win at the University of Nairobi’s Confucius Institute, where they had only 15 minutes to convince judges, the team now plans to build the back-end system linked to Kenya Health Information Systems. They will start with a Minimum Viable Product that is bilingual in English and Kiswahili.
Business and Sustainability lead Faith Mutanu said the rollout will begin in Kiambu County in the first phase, then expand to Garissa and Kisumu, before seeking national endorsement from the Ministry of Health within a year.
For a book that started as a meme, its digital future might just be what keeps mothers alive long after they leave the hospital.
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