Zim AI Expert Creates App That Helps To Diagnose Parkinson’s Disease

Babusi Nyoni is an interesting guy. From creating the “world’s first AI football commentator” for UEFA in 2016 to working with the United Nations on a number of artificial intelligence-related projects, it’s fair to call the Zimbabwean an Artificial Intelligence expert.

The same man worked with triple black agency to develop an application that can assist healthcare professionals in diagnosing Parkinson’s disease. Patana AI uses “computer vision to assess posture and gait on mobile devices and uses the device accelerometer to analyse hand tremors.”

Simply put, the app does not detect Parkinson’s disease, rather it allows for the collection of data by healthcare practitioners in order to inform such a prognosis.
Babusi Nyoni

One of the key partners who were involved in the building up of the Patana AI application was Ekuphumuleni Geriatric Nursing Home “research insights and usability testing”.

Data scarcity is still an issue but it’s worth noting that more often than not, the main challenge is discoverability rather than actual absence.
Babusi Nyoni

Patana AI makes use of a custom-trained model for the posture classification and uses an algorithm for gait and tremor assessments. Nyoni explained that the posture model is currently “being retrained every two weeks to improve accuracy”.

We asked Babusi what devices optimally run the Patana AI application and he shared that at the moment devices with the Snapdragon 835 and at least 2GB of RAM get the job done. What does that mean for those you who aren’t concerned with specs? Any top-end and midrange device made in the last two years will probably be able to run the application without too much of a hassle.

It’s great to see such strides being made on our continent and hopefully, the work done by Triple Black Agency and Babusi in bringing Patana AI to fruition inspires other people looking to enter the field of artificial intelligence in the health sector.