{Groups of high school girls studying computer related combinations are participating in a global technology entrepreneurship competition to create mobile for apps which they will be given an opportunity to sell in local markets.}
‘Technovation challenge’ is program in which teams of secondary school girls aged between 13 to 18 supported by local mentors, who are accomplished women professionals in ICT field from IT companies, training institutions and government; use their creativity to develop mobile applications start-ups to solve problems in their communities.
Girls from 13 schools have recently participated in hands on workshop dubbed’Technovation Hackday’ at US Embassy to launch the competition.
They were facilitated by mentors to work on mobile apps development projects and brainstormed on ideas to implement for the Technovation challenge.
Valina Umutako ,a pupil from Gashora Girls Academy is a participant. She said: “we learnt a lot about technovation program, types of apps design, and steps to building apps, there are many students from different schools who got to know each other and formed groups and we were able to make a small app which is a good experience for us.”
Local mentors say the tech challenge promotes tech entrepreneurship among Rwandan women at a younger age and contributes to the software industry growth, as some graduates lack skills needed on the market.
“I personally, want to become a computer engineer, so actually ‘Technovation’ brought up the passion in me, it taught me what the computer engineering is and I liked it very much and am willing to make it my future profession .”added Ms. Umutako
Guillaine Neza is a mobile apps developer at Partners in Health and mentor. She says, the technology challenge’s impact on girls in Rwanda is exposing them to hands on activities that will prepare them for a successful career in ICT, highlight their dreams and showing them a possibility to get there.
Creating apps for a meaning
“I want to be an app developer and makes business out of it, to be selling apps to solve problems in my society: there are various problems in Rwanda which could be solved technically using technology. “Explained Umutako
Ideas brainstormed during the workshop to kick off the tech entrepreneurship challenge , includes among others apps ideas to find solutions on epidemic diseases testing ,mobile banking, education ,businesses, medical doctor shortage at hospitals .
Huguette Mfizi also participated in the Technovation Hackday, She said:” I am a happy because I learned many skills on how to create mobile applications, as I want to be a software developer and design many applications for my community to make some work easier.”
Amandine Manwanijimbere takes Maths physics and computer science. She narrated: “We were introduced to Technovation program ,today we had sessions in which we have been brainstormed for solutions, where we applied skills we were introduced to for solving a given problems that we see in our community .”
The school girl added, as she has been working in a girl empowerment club at school, she is trying to find a solution to connect the girls all over Rwanda.
Self-Confident
“I am confident that we will make it to the global level, the first thing is to identify a very good team to work with and I guess at my school, we have a very nice team and we know so many people here who can help us through the journey of Technovation and we are planning to use the resources available.” Explained
After 3 months mentorship, there will be two pitches to do to the Technovation judges, one is regional via skype and the next one is in USA in front of a panel of judges in San Francisco Silicon Valley.
“ICT is a tool to facilitate anything so you can be it in agriculture, business and engineer, where we need ICT to make what we are doing faster and easier. I encourage girls and others to learn ICT and use it in their daily life, advised Manwanijimbere
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