Dad’s Late-Night Search Leads to AI Epilepsy Breakthrough That Could Change Thousands of Young Lives
- A decade of unanswered medical questions ended with one late-night search that changed a family’s life and launched a mission to help children with epilepsy
- A father’s tech background and relentless hope brought about an AI breakthrough that could change epilepsy diagnosis across South Africa
- Community donations poured in as South Africans rallied behind a family determined to turn pain into life-changing medical progress
A father from Alberton, Gauteng, turned years of no answers into a mission after a late-night internet search helped uncover the hidden cause behind his young son’s epilepsy. The discovery sparked a crowdfunding campaign to bring advanced artificial intelligence technology to Mzansi.
Source: UGC
Matthew Sanan and his wife, Jenny, launched Project Unseen, a BackaBuddy crowdfunding drive aimed at helping doctors detect invisible brain abnormalities in children with drug-resistant epilepsy.
This came after AI technology revealed the true cause of their son Declan’s relentless seizures, after seven MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans over ten years could not detect anything.
For nearly a decade, the Sanan family lived under the weight of unanswered questions as their son battled multiple seizures a day. Repeated hospital visits delivered the same verdict of ‘normal scans’ and no clear path forward.
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A decade-long search finally reveals answers
Declan, who will turn 12 in May, began experiencing seizures at the age of two. Despite extensive medical care and genetic testing, doctors were unable to pinpoint the cause. The constant uncertainty left his parents trapped between hope and fear, unsure whether their child would ever live without the shadow of the condition.
A breakthrough came after Matthew stumbled across an experimental international research initiative using artificial intelligence to detect brain abnormalities linked to drug-resistant epilepsy. He submitted Declan’s previous scans, and weeks later, the AI flagged a consistent hidden lesion that had gone unnoticed for years, which was later confirmed by a global epilepsy specialist.
That discovery ignited a vision to bring similar AI-powered research tools to South Africa, where thousands of children remain undiagnosed due to the limitations of traditional scanning methods.
According to a 2024 clinical review published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, epilepsy remains a major public health challenge for children in Sub-Saharan Africa, with significantly higher rates than in high-income countries due to infections, birth-related brain injuries, and limited access to diagnostic tools. The study found that up to 80% of children with epilepsy do not receive proper treatment, largely because of weak healthcare systems.
A father’s breakthrough becomes a national mission
Driven by a background in technology, Sanan began building what he calls the “engine” behind Project Unseen, a high-performance computing system designed to train artificial intelligence models to detect subtle neurological abnormalities faster and more accurately.
He turned to everyday South Africans for financial assistance in launching a crowdfunding campaign on BackaBuddy, with donations from across the country surpassing R210,000.
The funds raised will go directly toward purchasing advanced computing hardware capable of processing thousands of 3D brain scans.
Source: UGC
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Source: Briefly News
