Increasing Cancer Awareness
with OutSystems and the C-VIVE App

Tackling Cancer Awareness in the East Cape

In South Africa's Eastern Cape, CCT discovered that ignorance, myths, fears, and stigma around cancer were contributing towards late diagnoses and poor prognoses as people evaded medical advice and treatment. It identified a need for a technical solution to this issue: increasing cancer awareness and prevention in the area.

However, there were several criteria that needed to be met and issues that needed to be overcome before this solution could be designed and implemented.

To ensure ease of use and wide adoption, the project would have to take the form of a mobile application with broad accessibility features. To reach the rural South African communities in which this project could have the most impact, it needed to:

• Work without an internet connection.
• Be usable by illiterate people.
• Be usable by color-blind people.

Due to these restrictions, and the vital importance of this project, the CCT needed to choose the right partner to spearhead this initiative – with the digital transformation expertise and technical skills to make it a reality.

Building a Successful App 

NTT DATA Portugal was selected to create a cancer awareness app in partnership with OutSystems – delivering the final product to Nelson Mandela University and CANSA. The result was the C-VIVE app, customized and designed for adoption in rural South African communities.

The C-VIVE app has since won awards for Best User Experience and Best Technical Solution from OutSystems, as well as further recognition from the CCP and ADCE Awards, due to its innovative and impactful nature.

These innovations centered on a few key areas to increase user adoption, engagement, and understanding of the subject matter, such as:

• Inclusion
• Gamification
• Accessibility
• Animation
• Multi-language support
• Offline content

Our app offers an intuitive and user-friendly navigation experience: making the content easily understandable to a wide spectrum of users through carefully crafted illustrations and neutral colors. To enhance user adoption and engagement, it rewards users with a flower that grows and blooms as they delve deeper into their journey.

The app utilizes text-to-speech technology to support people who may have difficulty reading. It also accounts for color-blind users by providing a color palette selected specifically for this purpose. The app avoids text-heavy screens and instead uses animations to visually guide users through self-examination steps, eliminating the need for lengthy explanations.

One of the key features of the app is that it provides full offline access to its content, enabling it to reach remote communities with limited internet connectivity. It supports multiple languages, such as Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, and English, to ensure that it reaches as diverse an audience as possible. This is particularly significant as information about cancer in these languages was previously scarce, and this project provides an invaluable library of content on the subject.

Working in Collaboration

Collaboration was a crucial factor in the success of this project. NTT DATA, CCT, CANSA, and OutSystems all worked together to create the C-VIVE app, aiming to uplift rural South African communities through cancer education.

CANSA envisioned the app as a tool to combat ignorance, myths, and stigma related to cancer, and, partnering with CANSA, the CCT used the 'Build for the Future' Hackathon, organized by OutSystems, to challenge NTT DATA to develop this solution. NTT DATA proudly accepted it as a pro-bono project framed within its sustainability strategy.

It is through the power of working together, combining diverse perspectives and expertise, that we can create impactful change and address pressing challenges. This collaboration showcases the immense potential when organizations come together with a shared vision, leveraging technology to make a positive impact on society.

NTT DATA & OutSystems: a global, longstanding partnership

Our twelve-year, award-winning partnership with OutSystems, the number one low-code development platform, gave us the experience needed to build the C-VIVE app, having used these tools to develop, deploy, and manage omnichannel applications for enterprise clients across the globe.

NTT DATA has been recognized for its extensive achievements in low-code projects across various industries and countries. It has over 1,000 certifications, the most OutSystems Badges worldwide, and numerous awards.