Three teams to represent Kenya at global women’s hackathon

Angela Oduor, co-founder Akirachix, an organisation that seeks to inspire and develop women in technology to change Africa’s future. Photo/FILE 

By Sandra Chao, schao@ke.nationmedia.com

Three teams of tech-savvy women are set to represent Kenya in this year’s International Women’s Hackathon competition organised by Microsoft.

 

The three teams were selected after a local version of the women’s hackathon organised over the  weekend by associations promoting professional female engagement in the  technology world.

Akirachix — which seeks to inspire and develop a successful force of women in technology who will change Africa’s future — and the Association of Computing Machinery’s Committee for Women (ACMW), hosted the  event at the Nailab incubation and acceleration programme following sponsorship from Google and Microsoft.

The Shiners team, which was the overall winner in the  hackathon, developed an online resource  centre for women in technology organisations.

The TechGees team developed an application that would help digitise the Nyumba Kumi  initiative.

The third  position was taken by the KonaMbaya group, which developed an application providing updates on areas that are considered safe or unsafe within the city.

Also developed were applications to educate high school girls on career opportunities in technology and another to provide security  alerts in light of the recent terrorist threats and attacks.

In an interview with the Business Daily, Alice Muraguri of ACM-W Nairobi chapter said the overall participation by about 74 women showed a growing interest in the  technology field by women.

“We had teams formed around  themes of security, education and  safety. Though ideally the groups  were to average about 10 people,  we urged the ladies to join themes they felt more interested in, so some teams ended up having as many as 20 people while the smallest group had nine,” she said.

The teams have been meeting on a daily basis since Sunday at the Ihub incubator to try and improve their applications and platforms before the June 1 deadline.

According to Angela Oduor one  of the  cofounders  of Akirachix, there is need to address the stereotype that technology is a male- dominated field as this stops women from participating in nationwide tech events.

“We want to provide the skills necessary for them to become empowered and give them a chance to have a level playing field with men in the industry,” she said.