E-health: the Inter-University Diploma (DIU) in ‘Innovation and Healthcare Practices’ concludes its 8th intake in Abidjan

26/06/2026

The 8th intake of the Inter-University Diploma (DIU) in ‘Innovation & Healthcare Practices’ concluded last week in Abidjan with a hackathon bringing together around sixty students from 19 African countries.

Launched in 2019, this course dedicated to digital health continues to demonstrate its growing popularity year on year (1,176 applications were received in 2026, exceeding the 1,000 mark for the first time); and its important role in continuing professional development in the field of e-health in sub-Saharan Africa.

A training programme dedicated to digital health in Africa

In response to the rapid growth of information and communication technologies (ICT) in sub-Saharan Africa and a growing need to strengthen the skills of stakeholders in the field of digital health, the DIU ‘Innovation & Practices in Health’ was established in 2019 by Digi Santé Mali, an innovation lab at the University of Science, Engineering and Technology of Bamako (USTTB), with the support of the Fondation Pierre Fabre.

This short, blended, degree-leading course aims to familiarise stakeholders in the ecosystem with the fundamentals of digital health. It combines around 60 hours of online distance learning with a week of face-to-face training organised in the form of a hackathon at one of the partner universities.

At its launch, the project brought together three partner universities: Bamako, Abidjan and Dakar. The University of Lomé joined the initiative at the end of 2023, followed this year by the University of Antananarivo, thereby strengthening the programme’s international dimension.

A rapidly growing programme

Since its inception, the DIU has experienced remarkable growth. In response to ever-increasing demand, the number of students per intake has tripled since 2023, reaching around 60 participants today, the majority of whom are supported by scholarships funded by the Fondation Pierre Fabre. Since 2019, 291 students working in 22 countries across the African continent have been trained.

The 2026 intake is a particularly good illustration of this momentum, with a record number of applications and an ever-wider geographical representation.

A hackathon dedicated to digital health solutions

The graduation ceremony for this 8th cohort took place on Thursday 18 June at Félix Houphouët-Boigny University in Abidjan, which hosted the closing hackathon for the second time.

For a week, the students worked in teams on digital health projects addressing specific and significant public health issues. On this occasion, Alice Brou, a member of staff at the Fondation Pierre Fabre, shared the lessons learnt from the Foundation’s ten years of involvement in the field of e-health, before presenting some of the certificates to the participants.

First prize in the hackathon was awarded to the ‘BAYA’ project, a smart monitoring solution designed for antenatal care.