Who we are

A Mogadishu health technology company, with a research background in Somali language technology and public health systems.

Where we come from

Eastwind Systems grew out of research work: Somali language technology, open datasets, and information systems for public health. That work put us in front of the real constraint in this region, which is not talent or ideas but health systems that survive contact with a border post, a district office and a power cut.

We build in Mogadishu, for health institutions in the Horn of Africa, in the two languages our clients work in. Our work is written to support what those institutions are already measured against: universal health coverage, and the International Health Regulations capacities for surveillance, response and points of entry.

What we believe, stated plainly

A system is not finished when it is deliveredIt is finished when a district officer uses it on a Tuesday without being asked to, and a director quotes a number from it in a meeting. Everything before that is a demonstration.

Software for a country is mostly rules and scopeThe interesting part is not the screen. It is who may see what, which state follows which, what counts as approved, and what happens when two people disagree. We spend our time there.

Write it downDecisions, open questions, data dictionaries, the reason a threshold is 72 hours and not 48. A ministry should be able to read why its system behaves as it does, years after the people who built it have moved on.

The emergency is the normal caseIn this region a system is often first used in the week something has gone wrong. We design for that week rather than for the calm demonstration before it.

How the firm is set up

Small, senior and accountable. The person who writes the proposal is the person who builds the system and answers the phone when it breaks.

A small core team with specialists brought in for a specific system: identity, payments, geospatial work, clinical review.
One named lead per client, who stays with that system through build and operation. No handover to an account manager.
We publish methods and tools where they are useful to others, and we say clearly what is ours and what belongs to the client.
We take on work we can do properly. If we cannot staff it well we say no, and where we can we suggest who can.

Work we can talk about

Our national traveller screening service was built with the Federal Ministry of Health and Human Services and the National Institute of Health, and is in daily use at Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu. Other systems are running under their institutions' own names and we describe them once those institutions are ready to be named. We will walk you through any of them on a call, with the people who use them in the room.

Arrange a walkthrough