Rest Essence never expected to watch a family friend come close to dying while giving birth.
It was around 1 a.m. when she went into labour, and she was taken from one hospital to another. The first hospital refused to admit her for reasons that remain unclear, while the second had no electricity. Under the glow of handheld flashlights at the third hospital, she delivered her second child by caesarean section. She then began haemorrhaging, and for a moment, Essence feared she would not survive.
She did, but that experience changed the course of his own life.
At the time, Essence had challenged himself to spend a year searching for a problem worth solving in Africa. That night gave his search a direction, he told TechCabal.
“That experience opened my eyes to how big of a problem medical emergencies are in Nigeria and across Africa,” he said. “That was when it dawned on me that this is a problem worth solving. I had known how 911 operated outside of the country, but I kept questioning why it wasn’t functional in Nigeria.”
