Financial Times lauds "frightenly clever" mPedigree founder Bright Simons

UK newspaper, The Financial Times (FT) has lauded Ghana’s technology entrepreneur, Bright Simons, describing him as a "frighteningly clever" individual.

In an article published on Monday, FT praised Mr Simons and three others as "tech tycoons" for shaking up the African technological market with their innovative digital products.

Mr Simons was applauded for innovating mPedigree, which provides Africans with a mobile phone verification service to check the authenticity of medicines.

“Bright Simons is frighteningly clever, as his name suggests. After winning a scholarship to study astrophysics at Durham University in England, the 34-year-old gave up an academic career to start his own company back home in Ghana in 2007 with the aim of using technology to revolutionise healthcare,” FT stated.

“The system involves a scratch card number on the back of medicine packets, which can be texted to a central database for verification. Because consumers send the texts for free, mPedigree charges manufacturers. The business has a relationship with many of the big regional pharmaceutical companies, as well as some multinationals including French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis,” it added.

mPedigree is globally regarded as revolutionary, since pharmaceuticals are a big killer in the developing world, accounting for about 30 per cent of all medicines on sale, according to the World Health Organisation.

Its use has spread across west and east Africa and is also being used in India and other parts of Asia. It is also expanding to seeds, cosmetics, textiles, motor parts and other businesses.