Elajy-علاجي

Inspiration

We’ve always wondered why accessing medicine in Sudan is so difficult. We kept seeing countless WhatsApp statuses and Facebook posts asking, “Who’s coming from KSA or Egypt soon? I urgently need some medicine.” But beyond that, one issue stood out to us even more, the complete neglect of psychiatric health in Sudan. Mental health struggles are deeply stigmatised, and finding psychiatric medications is often nearly impossible. Then, the 2023 war hit, displacement made it even harder for people to find medicines in unfamiliar places. That’s when we asked ourselves: Why not build an app to make searching for and accessing medicines easier in Sudan? And so, Elajy was born.

What it does

Elajy is a dual-interface mobile app, built for both patients and pharmacists, each with tailored features designed to solve the real medicine access challenges in Sudan.

👤 For Patients

🔍 Search for Medicines by name or scanning the package
📍 Find Nearby Pharmacies with real-time availability and distance
🌙 Quickly Find 24/7 Open Pharmacies during emergencies
💬 Contact Pharmacies Directly through chat or call
💵 View Prices and Quantities before going to the pharmacy
📦 Browse Health Products in organized categories
🚚 Request Delivery from nearby pharmacies
🎁 Donate Medicines or Funds to help others
⭐ Rate and Review Pharmacies to build trust

🧑‍⚕️ For Pharmacists

📦 Add and Manage Medicine Inventory with ease
📉 Monitor Sales and Stock in real time
📊 Track Pharmacy Performance: customer numbers, top-selling meds, weekly/monthly profits
💬 Chat with Customers and receive medicine requests directly
💼 Offer Paid Consultations to patients through the platform
📍 Be Discoverable via Location-Based Search
🔔 Enable 24/7 Status to appear in emergency searches

How we built it

We began by designing a clean, intuitive interface using Figma, with special focus on making it user-friendly for people in Sudan, especially those with low digital literacy.

The entire app is in Arabic, with large buttons, simple navigation, and clear icons to ensure accessibility for all age groups.

To bring the design to life, we built the app using React Native and TypeScript, and tested it using Expo Go for fast mobile deployment. Since the vast majority of people in Sudan use Android phones, we developed the app specifically for the Android platform, ensuring smooth performance even on low-end devices.

To speed up our development in such a short timeframe, we made smart use of tools like Figma Make (for UI templates), Cursor (for code editing with AI), and GitHub Copilot (to help us generate and troubleshoot code). While these tools helped us move faster, we still had to adapt, debug, and learn a lot ourselves to get everything working right.

Challenges we ran into

Our team started as a group of three students with no background in app development. Building a mobile application from scratch felt intimidating at first. We could have added another team member just for the development part, but we made a bold decision:

We’d learn it ourselves.

And wow — we truly did.

We spent days diving into new tools, fixing bugs we didn’t understand at first, and learning everything from layout styling to real-time functionality. We faced countless frustrating errors, and there were moments where we genuinely felt like giving up. But we didn’t. Bit by bit, we solved every issue, tested every screen, and slowly watched our app come to life.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

📊 Collected 20+ survey responses from real Sudanese patients and pharmacists, proving the problem is real and urgent
🛠️ Designed and developed a complete Android app prototype from scratch, despite having zero prior experience in app development
❤️ Turned a story of loss into a platform of hope, one that could change how people in Sudan access medicine

Seeing Elajy actually working in the end was one of the most rewarding experiences we’ve had , and a huge reminder of how much we’re capable of when we stick together and believe in the problem we’re solving.

What we learned

🧠 We learned how to work under pressure, especially since this was our very first hackathon. It was challenging, but incredibly rewarding, and we’re proud of how far we pushed ourselves.
🎨 We gained hands-on experience with UI design tools like Figma, and learned how to build Android apps using React Native, TypeScript, and Expo Go.
🛠️ We leaned on powerful tools like Figma templates, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot to move fast — but we didn’t just copy; we learned how to adapt, fix, and build real features ourselves.
🤖 We also improved our prompt engineering skills, learning how to ask AI the right questions to build specific features efficiently.
🐞 And the bugs… oh, the bugs! Fixing them pushed us to level up our debugging skills and taught us patience, persistence, and problem-solving under pressure.

What's next for Elajy-علاجي

📴 Add offline support to allow users to view saved items without internet — a must for Sudan’s frequent connectivity issues
📲 Launch a fully-featured mobile app with backend integration, improving speed, data syncing, and user experience
🍎 Develop an iOS version to expand access across different device users
🤝 Partner with pharmacies and NGOs in Khartoum for a pilot launch and early community adoption
🧠 Add a dedicated psychiatric medicines section along with specialized features to better serve mental health needs
⏳ Add key features like medicine reservation (e.g., for 12 hours), authenticity checks, and SMS/USSD support for non-smartphone users
🇸🇩 Scale across Sudan, including rural and displaced communities, to make medicine accessible for all

Elajy is more than an app. It's a small promise that no one should die searching for medicine in a country full of people willing to help, if only we can connect them.