From leadership research to district action: The African digital health student bootcamp: bridging education, workforce, and practice gaps for healthcare innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa

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Evidence and transfer

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Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Abstract Introduction Africa, despite significant progress in various sectors, continues to face public health issues largely due to factors such as inadequate health system financing mechanisms, lack of stable leadership and governance, shortage of skilled health workforce, and limited access to drugs and technologies. To address these challenges, it is crucial to build the capacity of future professionals, providing them with resources to innovate health solutions. As such, we designed a bootcamp that empowers students, supports collaboration and interdisciplinary learning, provides access to mentors and resources, and fosters the development and application of practical digital health concepts for African university students. Methods The eight-week virtual bootcamp brought together diverse university students from across Africa, regardless of field or level of knowledge. They received mentorship and workshop sessions on the basics of digital health concepts, such as Basic Introduction to Digital Health, Healthcare Data and Analytics, etc., to develop health solutions. They were divided into teams of five, assigned mentors for collaborative projects, and pitched them. Winners and outstanding participants were awarded cash prizes. Pre- and post-boot camp surveys were conducted to assess changes in participants’ knowledge and skills. Results A total of 47 participants aged 18–35 years completed the survey, with an average age of 24, comprising 24 females (51%) and 23 males (49%). They were from 13 countries across the continent, with the majority, 20 (42%), from Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, each with 5 (11%), Kenya 4 (9%), Zambia, and Ghana, with 3 (6%) each. The remaining seven countries shared a total of 15%. Before the bootcamp, most participants (45; 94.83%) were somewhat unfamiliar with digital health concepts. After the bootcamp, (40; 82.93%) of participants reported a significant improvement in their knowledge, skills, and experience with digital health concepts. Discussion The Africa Digital Health Student Bootcamp 2023 (ADHSB'23) empowered participants with digital health skills and knowledge. Participants demonstrated significant improvements in their familiarity with digital health concepts. Therefore, it is necessary to showcase this creativity and innovation to stakeholders such as digital health organizations, universities, policymakers, and the general public to raise awareness and recognition of the program. Keywords: African students, bootcamp, digital health, empower, healthcare, innovation, youth

Study methods

ADHSB'23 was designed as an eight-week virtual training program incorporating mentorship and workshop sessions each week, culminating in an innovation challenge after completing their ideation. It empowers 50 students with the requisite knowledge, skills, and network to spearhead innovation and catalyze healthcare advancement through digital technology across Africa. The participants were given instructions qualitatively, allowing for real-time feedback, questions, and responses, but the results were assessed from the pre- and post-surveys. In addition, the bootcamp's qualitative instruction and real-time feedback help mentors understand students' experiences and perspectives about digital health, encouraging them to think creatively and develop innovative approaches and solutions to address global health issues. In addition to learning theoretical and practical skills, bootcamps usually exhibit a time-bound format where the participants gather together to learn experientially under their assigned mentors with the attempts to complete a project interesting to them and solve a potential issue (13). The bootcamp was developed with the mindset of empowering the next generation of health professionals, empowering them with the required capacity to ideate for health using a youth-focused approach, highlighting their importance in meaningfully participating in collaborating, mentorship, and innovating for problem-solving (14). In the same vein, the successful applicants aged 18–35 were also considered based on alignment with career goals, academic background, and potential for impact. This bootcamp also infuses the critical thinking approach to successfully apply the digital literacy skills that have been learned during the mentorship and workshop to practically and contextually develop fundable innovative ideas that are peculiar to the African population. Additionally, the design thinking approach to mentorship sessions guides the students through the stages of ideating, including defining a problem, ethical considerations, ideating culturally sensitive solutions, prototyping, and testing.

Limitations

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A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Tolulope Israel Oni; Rawan Mahmoud Elrayah Hussein; Olutola Vivian Awosiku; Shola Paul Emiade; Oluomachi Joline Osuagwu; Victor Femi-Lawal; Jide Babayeju; Lucy Anne Waweru; Moses Mathenge; Taofeekat Adigun; Loveday Nnabuife; Opeyemi Precious Alalade; Olaniyi Onigbinde. The African digital health student bootcamp: bridging education, workforce, and practice gaps for healthcare innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Frontiers in Digital Health (2026-02-04). https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2026.1728386

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.