Born in the Congolese field, trained in international best practice
Our story
In 2021, Prof. Frank Verbeke and Dr Ernest Mbo Ilenga carried out the feasibility study on digitalising the health system in Sud-Ubangi and Tshopo for Enabel and the European Union.
The finding was clear: digital projects rarely fail because of the software. They fail for lack of power, connectivity and, above all, local skills to keep them alive once the experts leave.
In 2022, they founded ICT4D-DRC in Kinshasa to address that. Rather than bringing in teams from outside, we recruit young IT graduates in the target provinces and train them for 4 to 6 weeks. They deploy the systems end to end, with limited support from senior experts from Kinshasa, Europe or Burundi.
Four years later, eight of these engineers still provide support and maintenance in the hospitals they digitalised, and about fifty trained young professionals can be mobilised for new projects.
Mission
To put digital technology at the service of care in health facilities across the DRC and Central Africa, with solutions suited to the field, local teams and long-term support.
Vision
By 2031, to be the leading implementation partner for health information systems in the DRC, present in every province, for the Ministry of Health, its partners and solution vendors.
Values
- Field first
- Sustainability
- Independence from vendors
- Cost transparency
- Scientific rigour
Our method in five phases
Every deployment follows the same steps, from site assessment to long-term sustainability.
Assess
Infrastructure, power, skills, human factors and hospital workflows.
Design
Choice of solution, architecture and a total-cost-of-ownership budget.
Build
Solar power, networking, servers and software configuration.
Deploy and train
Module-by-module go-live, role-based training, steering committee.
Sustain
Local support, preventive maintenance, refresher training, DHIS2 interoperability.
Why our investments don't stop when the project ends
- Skills in the province. Every hospital has a trained, reachable IT engineer recruited locally.
- Self-sufficient infrastructure. Every site has its own solar power and connection, monitored remotely.
- No licence lock-in. We favour open-source, interoperable solutions. The hospital owns its data.
- Realistic costs. We budget everything: hardware, power, training and maintenance over several years.
- A published, evaluated method. Our approach builds on research into the success factors of hospital information systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
A local partner for every digital health solution
OpenClinic GA is our starting point, not our limit. We deploy and integrate OpenMRS, DHIS2, ERPNext, OpenFn, openIMIS and other open-source or commercial solutions. We choose the tool after assessing the site and the needs, never before.
For solution vendors
Do you develop a solution for the health sector and want to deploy it in the DRC? We bring:
- knowledge of the health system and national standards;
- adaptation to context: language, pricing, insurance, reporting to the national health information system;
- deployment and first-line support teams in the provinces;
- access to decision-makers and funding partners.
Our work is aligned with the DRC's National Health Informatics Development Plan (PNDIS) and digital health strategy, in coordination with the national agency for clinical engineering and digital health (ANICNS), the provincial health divisions and the health zones.
Scaling up: 2026-2031
We currently cover 7 health zones: 4 in Sud-Ubangi, 2 in Tshopo and 1 in Kinshasa. Most of the country's referral hospitals still keep their records on paper. We are looking for partners to co-finance our growth.
Our ambition: extend our deployments to new provinces, move from the single hospital to the care network (hospital, health centres, laboratory, insurance), and become the reference integrator for major national programmes.
Programmes
Multi-site deployments under bilateral and multilateral funding.
Partnerships
Vendors, international integrators and universities.
Investment
Training capacity, starter kits for health centres, a national support centre.
Company profile
| Company name | ICT4D-DRC SARL |
|---|---|
| Legal form | Limited liability company under Congolese law (OHADA) |
| Incorporation | Registered on 2 November 2022 with the one-stop business registry (GUCE), Kinshasa |
| Head office | 4A, 11th Street, Industrial District, Limete, Kinshasa |
| Trade register (RCCM) | CD/KNM/RCCM/22-B-00801 |
| National ID (ID-NAT) | 01-J6100-N20478T |
| Compliance | Tax clearance, registered with the national social security fund (CNSS) |
| Offices | Kinshasa (head office), Gemena (Sud-Ubangi), Isangi and Kisangani (Tshopo) |
| Health zones covered | 7: 4 in Sud-Ubangi, 2 in Tshopo, 1 in Kinshasa |
| Technology partner | Post-Factum (Belgium), publisher of OpenClinic GA |