Team MedRX from Ghana has won the 2016 MTN Entrepreneurship Challenge, supported by the MTN Solution Space at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and e-commerce firm Jumia.

MedRX pipped two other finalists from Nigeria and Tanzania following assessments by a panel of business leaders comprising Jérémy Hodara, co-CEO Africa Internet Group, Professor Walter Baets, Director of the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, and Herman Singh, MTN Group Chief Digital Officer.

Victoria Acheampong, Hayford Brako and Yannick Kabu Bosomprah of team MedRX were awarded a US$25 000 cash prize to start-up their own unique business after all three finalists had to pitch their unique digital application or smart solution to combat a challenge faced in Africa.

MedRX is an interactive health platform which is used to connect patients, doctors and healthcare professionals.

Singh says the judges concurred that MedRX had the best online to offline capability. "We were really impressed with the width of their functionality and the depth of the integration of the application, handling a very complex challenge that actually delivered astonishingly great human value."

The Ghanaian startup also won a year-long partnership with Jumia, a Facebook Start Program to the value of US$15 000, as well as an opportunity to be incubated at the MTN Solution Space at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.

"We actually just entered the MTN Entrepreneurship Challenge to get exposure and it is such a great feeling to be announced the winner. Health is a very important to move any nation forward and this trend can be seen across the African continent. As a team we wanted to make this integral connection easier between medical resources and the people on the ground, and the MedRX application does just this. The implementation of our application will give us the opportunity to be more effective in our country and create positive change and it will be our ultimate goal to upscale and take this positive change to everyone across Africa. We truly hope that this is the beginning of a very bright future for us," said Acheampong.

The two runners-up teams, Pass.ng from Nigeria and Team Vicoba from Tanzania, each received US$5 000 towards their projects.

Team Pass.ng came up with a web, desktop and mobile-based application based on cognitive behavioural therapy that focuses on examination preparatory and testing.

Team Vicoba developed an application that creates a collaborative platform to assist Tanzanians who do not have access to conventional bank accounts, to access informal investment groups.

Bankole Cardoso, Head of Communications at Africa Internet Group, said of the challenge, "We recognise that the best way to have an impact in Africa is by investing in- and promoting entrepreneurship. With that in mind, we launched this challenge with the simple goal to support the network of quality entrepreneurs around Africa and to help these entrepreneurs interact with accelerators/incubators and investors in their local countries and across the Continent. I am so pleased to see that we've met this goal and I am particularly looking forward to seeing how these three startups evolve over the next year and I am eager to discover even more African startups."

A total of 26 countries, 61 Universities and 1529 applicants across the African continent took part in this year's competition.