Surgical telementoring
A WebRTC platform that streams the laparoscope and an external theatre camera to a remote mentor, with telestration drawn straight onto the surgical view and two-way audio.
PhD candidate · Biomedical Engineering · University of Cape Town · Google PhD Fellow
Prosper Magara
Biomedical & electrical engineer working on surgical telementoring for laparoscopic surgery.
I build the hardware and software that let an expert surgeon guide a laparoscopic procedure from anywhere: real-time video links, on-screen telestration, latency measurement rigs and AI that flags bleeding before it starts. I work alongside laparoscopic surgeons at Groote Schuur Hospital, with hands-on time on LapSim simulators and box trainers, and occasional exposure to the da Vinci robot in theatre.
- Cape Town, South Africa
- prospermagara@gmail.com
- Google Scholar
- ORCID
- GitHub
About
Engineering for surgeons who are far from the specialist they need
I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer from Zimbabwe, now a PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cape Town and a Google PhD Fellow.
My research is on surgical telementoring: letting an experienced surgeon supervise and guide laparoscopic procedures remotely, with video, audio and on-screen annotation that arrive fast enough to be useful in theatre. Most of my work is in conventional laparoscopic surgery with surgeons at Groote Schuur Hospital. From time to time it extends to robot-assisted surgery, where I have been exposed to the da Vinci system in theatre. I have trained on the LapSim virtual-reality simulator and laparoscopic box trainers.
I am a member of the Telemedicine and Connected Care research group and the UCT MedTech research group in the Division of Biomedical Engineering. The work has taken me to Rwanda, Italy and Finland for research visits and conferences, and it is aimed at the shortage of specialist surgeons in remote and under-served regions, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal 3.
Before the PhD I spent several years hands-on with medical equipment: planning, installing, calibrating and servicing X-ray machines, dialysis units, autoclaves and chemistry analysers in hospitals across Zimbabwe. I also designed and installed solar power systems, which taught me to build things that keep working far from the nearest workshop.
- Current role
- PhD candidate, Biomedical Engineering, University of Cape Town (since 2024)
- Fellowship
- Google PhD Fellowship, 2024
- Research groups
- Telemedicine and Connected Care (2024–2027) · UCT MedTech (2025–2027)
- Clinical partner
- Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town
- Education
- MSc Biomedical Engineering (distinction) · BSc (Hons) Electrical Engineering
- Industry
- Medical device installation and servicing · Solar PV systems
- Languages
- English, Shona
Research
What I work on
Measuring latency
A glass-to-glass latency rig built around an ATmega328 microcontroller and light sensors, so delay is measured from the endoscope's view to the mentor's screen rather than estimated from network statistics.
AI in the operating theatre
Bleeding monitoring and anticipation models for laparoscopic video, evaluated for the latency budget of a real-time telementoring link rather than offline accuracy alone.
Robot-assisted surgery, occasionally
From time to time the same questions reach the da Vinci: how network delay and decision support shape what a remote surgeon can do, and how to measure that before it reaches a patient.
Research interests
Projects
Selected work
Research software from the PhD, followed by engineering work from industry and earlier degrees.
PhD research software
Laparoscopic Telementoring Platform
ActiveReal-time telementoring web app with dual-camera streaming (laparoscope plus external view), interactive telestration with pen, shapes, arrows and undo/redo, two-way audio and session monitoring. Being extended with an AI voice assistant and bleeding-anticipation computer vision.
EndoLatency
v0.1Desktop tool plus microcontroller firmware that measures the glass-to-glass latency of an endoscope video chain and of a telementoring link. An LED in the endoscope's field of view is flashed and light sensors on each screen time its arrival, so link delay needs no clock synchronisation between computers. Guides sensor placement, records trials, analyses them and exports a report.
Bleeding Anticipation for Laparoscopic Surgery
Predicts that bleeding is about to start several seconds before it does, from laparoscopic cholecystectomy video. Compares a video-frame pipeline (ResNet18 + GRU) with a symbolic event-log pipeline adapted from a published Transformer architecture, under one strict definition of anticipation.
Telementoring Desktop (mentee side)
Operating-room-friendly desktop app that captures the laparoscope and an external camera, blurs faces in real time for patient and staff privacy, and serves as the base for WebRTC streaming and telestration overlays.
Theatre Recorder
In progressWindows application that records surgical video from a USB capture device, including da Vinci console output, with an optional webcam picture-in-picture, through a single hardware-accelerated FFmpeg pipeline that writes crash-safe fragmented MP4.
Engineering work
Smart Health Station
MSc thesisSemi-automatic, isolating and portable health station for swab collection and patient data entry, built for COVID-era screening in Zimbabwe. Non-contact temperature, height and weight measurement, an Android app for data entry, and solar backup power. The thesis earned a distinction.
Read the paper (PDF)Medical equipment installation
Planned, installed, calibrated and serviced X-ray machines, dialysis machines, autoclaves, theatre beds and chemistry analysers for hospitals across Zimbabwe. At Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals I took part in a water-treatment plant installation and the commissioning of a new MRI scanner.
Solar power systems
Designed, installed and maintained off-grid and hybrid solar systems since 2018, from load sizing and panel layout to inverter and battery commissioning, including backup power for medical equipment.
Smart Egg Incubator
BSc thesisDesign, development and implementation of a microcontroller-based smart egg incubator, which won the best innovative project award at the University of Zimbabwe Research Week in 2019. Submitted alongside an LME49710-based audio amplifier as final-year projects.
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AI-based automated bleeding monitoring in conventional and robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery: a systematic review
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Latency-aware evaluation of bleeding monitoring algorithms for real-time surgical applications
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Design of a solar-based virtual clinic for austere environments
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User-centred design of a tele-mentoring system for laparoscopic surgery in austere environments
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Development of a semi-automatic, isolating and portable health-station for swab collection and patient data entry
Recognition
Awards, fellowships and affiliations
Awards & fellowships
-
2026
PhD First Prize, Best Presenter Award
BME Ignite, the HUB Biomedical Engineering Fusion event of the Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town.
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2024
Google PhD Fellowship
Awarded for research combining AI and augmented reality in telementoring systems for laparoscopic surgery in resource-limited settings. Includes mentorship from a Google researcher.
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2019
Best Innovative Project
University of Zimbabwe Research Week, for the smart egg incubator final-year project.
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Hackathon
Second Creative SDGs Idea
CBZ Bank "Hacking for SDGs post COVID-19 and beyond" hackathon, Zimbabwe.
Affiliations & collaborations
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2024 – 2027
Telemedicine and Connected Care research group
Division of Biomedical Engineering, University of Cape Town. PhD research supervised by Dr Bessie Malila, Dr Lamees Ras and Prof Ahmed Biyabani (Carnegie Mellon University Africa).
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2025 – 2027
UCT MedTech research group
Medical technology research across the Division of Biomedical Engineering.
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Clinical
Groote Schuur Hospital
Work alongside surgical teams, mainly on laparoscopic surgery and occasionally on robot-assisted cases, with hands-on time on the LapSim virtual-reality simulator and laparoscopic box trainers and exposure to the da Vinci surgical robot in theatre.
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Travel
Research visits and conferences
Rwanda, Italy and Finland.
Experience & education
Where I've worked and studied
Experience
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2024 – present
PhD Researcher and Google PhD Fellow
Division of Biomedical Engineering, University of Cape Town
Surgical telementoring for laparoscopic surgery, and occasionally robot-assisted surgery: WebRTC streaming, telestration, glass-to-glass latency measurement and AI-based bleeding monitoring, in collaboration with Groote Schuur Hospital.
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2022 – 2023
Medical Device Engineer
Med-Elect Technologies, Zimbabwe
Planned, installed, calibrated and serviced biomedical equipment including X-ray machines, dialysis machines and autoclaves, and scheduled preventive maintenance. Delivered solar installations in parallel as a freelance engineer.
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2022
Biomedical Engineering Attaché
Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, Harare
Six-month attachment at Zimbabwe's largest hospital: equipment inventory, installation and maintenance across surgery, paediatrics, oncology, haematology, orthopaedics and radiography, including a water-treatment plant and a new MRI installation.
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2020 – 2021
Biomedical and IoT Engineer
SolidarMed, Zimbabwe
Electronic health project: IoT health devices such as a smart pill bottle, telemedicine tooling (REDCap), monitoring and evaluation, and report writing. Supervised three computer science students and one electronic engineering student.
Education
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2024 – present
PhD, Biomedical Engineering
University of Cape Town
Telemedicine and smart hospitals: telementoring and telesurgery with augmented reality and haptics over 5G networks.
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2021 – 2022
MSc, Biomedical Engineering
University of Zimbabwe · Distinction
Biomedical devices and biomedical imaging. Thesis: design and development of a smart health station for swab collection and patient data entry.
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2015 – 2019
BSc (Hons), Electrical Engineering
University of Zimbabwe · Upper second class
Electrical power engineering. Final-year projects: a smart egg incubator and an LME49710-based audio amplifier.
Skills
Tools I work with
Surgical technology
Software
Embedded & hardware
Medical technology
Energy
Professional
From the field
Where the work happens
Contact
Let's talk
I'm open to research collaborations, talks, and engineering work on medical devices, surgical technology and telemedicine.
- Email prospermagara@gmail.com
- Office Division of Biomedical Engineering, Human Anatomy Building, University of Cape Town