eMobilis wins inaugural USD 5000 Miss.Africa Seed Fund as two other African Initiatives benefit
eMobilis a Kenyan based Mobile Technology Institute that focuses on training women & girls on Mobile Software Development and Network Infrastructure emerged as the grand prize winner of the Inaugural Miss.Africa Seed Fund for an amount of USD 5,000.
Other beneficiaries of the Miss.Africa seed fund included a startup Madagascar based initiative Tech MDG / Pyladies Antananarivo, MDG led by Ms. Aina Anjary Fenomamy R. to encourage girls to study and build career in computer sciences or other STEM fields as well as educate Malagasy mothers concerning the use of technology, and Pycon Cameroon, led by Mr. Ngangsi Richard that teaches computer coding to girls and women.
For the inaugural grand prize, Code for Cape Town from South Africa emerged as the second runner up followed by Girls In Tech (GTech) program under Africa ICT Right from Ghana and Abo Coders from Nigeria. Among the countries, Nigeria emerged with the most number of applications at 23% followed by Kenya (20%), Uganda (15%). South Africa and Tanzania tied at 8%, Ghana (6%), Cameroon (5%) and Rwanda with 4 % of the entries.Other which fell under 1% include Algeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Swaziland.
Ms. Kim Gueho DCA Trust Corporate Trustee and Advisory Board Member gave a standing ovation to all the Nominees, in particular to the Inaugural winner, eMobilis, saying they responded to all the criteria (of the Seed Fund) and that they offers ‘great, innovative training for women. Our fund is very excited with this program in general, as well as to lend financial support to these initiatives”.
Giving a statement to this press release, Bekele said
“The Miss.Africa program has come a long way from just an idea to an incredible pan-african initiative to promote girls and women with the sole aim of improving their digital self-awareness and empowerment to actually funding their dreams. What a great way to celebrate this year’s Women’s History Month!”.
Ms. Nancy Wanjira- Mobigirlz Program Manager of eMobilis, speaking after the win said:
“We are thrilled to learn that we emerged as a finalist and winner of the inaugural 2015 Miss. Africa Seed Fund. Thank you to DotConnectAfrica Trust for directly supporting eMobilis Mobigirlz initiative and awarding us with the grant to improve technology literacy and education among girls while strengthening their stance in the tech field. We believe that for us to drive tech progress in Kenya and Africa as a whole we need to put girls in the driver’s seat and empower them to reach their full potential. We are very excited to work with DotConnectAfrica in this partnership.”
Miss.Africa Seed Fund announced in July 2015, will be an annual pan-african fund with applicants being selected from entries of interest within the African continent.
