Women entrepreneurs in Hi-tech start-ups

Men and women throughout the world have taken initiatives to develop innovative programmes, activities and even solutions to the social, economic and environmental challenges facing us everyday.

However, women still lag behind when it comes to the start-ups and the innovation world.

Tanzania is one among many countries which have taken initiatives to ensure that women in particular are highly encouraged to be innovative. Today, Woman shares with you some of the few young women who are using innovation to bring out changes in their communities.

Doreen Kessy – Chief Operating Officer and creator at Ubongo Kids

She is the Chief Operating Officer at Ubongo Kids - creators of educational cartoon Ubongo Kids. This is a social enterprise which uses technology to provide educational content in the form of a cartoon show which is localised to Africa. Anyone with even the most basic phone can access Ubongo Mobile. And it is even more interesting as children can use the system anytime, anywhere to keep learning.

Being passionate in education and making learning fun, she has been part of Tanzanian animators and voice actors producing the show who also have attributed its success.

The show is focused on teaching Math through animated stories and catchy songs. With an estimated 1.2 million weekly viewers across Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda, the show is now working to teach early language and literacy for 3 to 6 year-old children in Africa.

As a business management professional who holds an MBA and a BS in International Business and Economics from Liberty University in Virginia, Doreen has been passionate about bringing forth social change in Tanzania and Africa at large. In Ubongo she is involved in the growth of the organisation, developing partners, and helping Ubongo’s unique content spread throughout the continent.

She does the English voice of Ngedere on Ubongo Kids.

Faraja Nyalandu - Founder & Executive Director- Shule Direct

She is a founder and Executive Director of Shule Direct, a social enterprise that leverages existing technology to catalyse students’ success by creating and providing anywhere, anytime learning opportunities for young learners.

Faraja developed Shule Direct based on her passion to impact social change on a global scale. Her organisation provides cutting edge web and mobile educational platforms for students and teachers and offers versatile local learning content on many subjects.

The company offers a range of secondary school subjects including Physics, Mathematics, English, Biology, Chemistry and more on the web and on mobile,and are continually designing new and innovative resources and solutions to ensure students and teachers are prepared for the future.

Winner of Reach for Change Social Impact Challenge 2013-2014, Shule Direct was ranked in the top 3 Education and Technology startups in Africa at Pearson’s Edupreneurs in South Africa.

Modesta Joseph - Creator of a web based system Ourcries

This is another young woman who is at the forefront of Tanzania technology and has clearly proved that girls can also perform wonders when involved in technology.

A Kisutu Girls Secondary School student, Modesta who is 16 years-old has managed to develop a web based system thanks to the passion she had to do something for her community despite having no idea on what, when and how she was going to do that.

With few sessions to attend, Modesta was able to create her own website to give a voice to students who are harassed and abused by bus conductors while using public transport in Dar es salaam.

With her project -Our cries, last year, she applied for the Innovation Fund competition by TANZICT & COSTECH and managed to win Tsh10 million for her project after passing the interview.

Today her idea has turned into a live website – www.Our cries.com, which has collected more than 200 cry reports from students with a promising support from SUMATRA.

Modesta was also shortlisted by Ashoka, the world’s most prestigious network of social entrepreneurs – to attend an event in Nairobi.

Neema Shosho - Founder of Afya Slice

Through her company Afya Slice, Neema has designed an innovative digital tool kit that will provide mobile nutrition information that provides information on how to use the available local foods to improve nutritional status of children. She was awarded Tsh 44 million at the 4th edition of the Tigo digital change-makers social entrepreneurship initiative, a competition aimed at identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs with technology to improve community and impact future generation.

Neema, who worked as the regional nutritionist in Tanga under the Ministry of Health and Social welfare for some years before joining the Embassy of Ireland as a Nutrition Advisor, a position she still holds to date, says she used to see nutritional problems in the sense of undernutrition, malnutrition and the unavailability of food. While in the US she learned about overnutrition, about being overweight and obesity issues.

Graduating from Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, she pursued a Master’s degree in Food and Nutritional Sciences from 2012 to 2014 through the USAID project’s sponsorship at Tuskegee University in the United States.

Her experiences in the United States inspired Shosho’s work. In addition to her advocacy initiatives that ensure children are not underfed, she also teaches basic nutrition and the avoidance of over nutrition to her clients.

She says AfyaSlices came like an idea while she was working at the hospital and doing nutrition consultancy to AAR insurance company’s cooperate clients.

“After working in this field for a while, I observed that due to some reasons, some of my clients could not manage to come and see me physically for the training or counselling. They used to call or text and ask all the questions and I will respond through the same channel. That’s where I thought I should use mobile technology to deliver information, communicate with my clients, change their lifestyles and make money out of the whole idea. Through the support I received and continue to receive from Reach for Change and Tigo Tanzania, am looking forward to reaching more people with nutrition education soon,” she says.

AfyaSlices aims to provide services continuously, make a difference and reach as many people as possible.

Carolyne Ekyarisiima - Founder of Apps and Girls

Based in Dar es Salaam, Carolyne is the founder of Apps and Girls. She pitched her startup at the Reach for Change Tanzania Startup Competition and became one of the top five finalists. She teaches 40 young girls at a secondary school every week on how to create websites.

“We also provide mentorship and incubation to emerging young female TECH entrepreneurs and help to use our network to promote their work to customers, partners and potential funding opportunities. Our mission is to make these girls tech drivers /leaders creating startups and products solving community problems thus becoming role models to fellow girls,” she says.

A holder of Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Master of Science in Information Systems, Carolyne, who was introduced to codding when reached university which was late says, “Having participated in local innovation competitions and events at tech hubs where women were underrepresented made me realise the gender gap in ICT. I remember a colleague asking “But where are your fellow women?” I started mobilizing university girls and organized events to attract more girls into ICT classes and tech entrepreneurship.” Says Carolyne

Her love for programming and coding made her desire to bridge the gap in ICT among girls in Tanzania and give every girl the opportunity to use ICT to better their lives.

She teaches girls how to create Mobile Apps, how to build a website and work with programs and this is done through coding clubs in schools, where girls learn the basics to do real coding later on.

Her determination is for girls to use technology to change their lives. She understands that some girls don’t make it to the university, but through ICT they can continue working on their own ideas, and find information easily.

For girls who go to the university, Apps and Girls help them continue within the field, and even to become engineers. The main goal is to include them in society and empower them through ICT to get better lives.

Apps and Girls aims to bridge the tech gender gap in Tanzania by providing quality coding training in web programming, mobile app development, game development to girls between the age of 10 to 18 in respective schools where we create coding clubs.

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