Miss.Africa Digital Announces the Winners for the 2018 Seed Fund round

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The Pan-African trust program of DotConnectAfrica (DCA) today announces the winners of the 2018 Miss.Africa Digital Seed Funding for STEM Programs.

Kumasi Hive from Ghana wins the 2018 5,000 USD Grand Prize while, INTELLECT-Team at Laboratory of Technologies for Smart Systems (CRNS) Tunisia and Eco-Sol Consulting (Full STEM Ahead!) Seychelles will take home the Second category prize of 1,000 USD.

The Seed Fund that is focused in Africa that is now in its fourth year offer grants to support women and girls in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs to launch or expand their own initiatives that will increase their digital opportunities in IT related training, jobs and leadership roles.

“Our winners have one thing in common, their desire and grit to impart digital skills to young African scholars and is inspiring. They have shown potential for partnership and effort to drive educational value, their projects rated high during evaluations”, Ms. Kim Gueho, DCA Trust Corporate Trustee and Miss.Africa CO-Evaluation Committee.

Sophia Bekele, Founder & CEO of DotConnectAfrica Group, and the champion behind Miss.Africa Digital Program complimented the winners saying, “Without a sustained collaborative and creative effort, the goals of growing the local skills that are empowered and technology driven, we will not simply achieve the sustainable development that is required to power Africa’s economy.”

The 2018 Seed Fund Award winners are:

Grand prize of Five Thousand United States Dollars (5000 USD) category:

Kumasi Hive, Ghana

Click to watch Kumasi Hive on DotAfrica.Tv

“It has been established that the marginalization of women in participation in the digital economy will further deepen the inequity and injustice in social economic development challenges facing women. Gender equity is crucial for human development, economic growth, and population health.

This growing digital gender divide can perpetuate high levels of poverty by limiting women’s access to information and services for health, job opportunities, safety and education for both themselves and their families. For women with access, patriarchal and cultural practices continue to limit that extent to which women can fully exercise rights to privacy, free expression and access to information.

As such, We (Kumasi Hive) through its Bridge the Gap initiative is excited about this opportunity the opportunity to impact more girls and to work together with Miss Africa Seed Fund/DCA Trust on developing the critical mass of competent female skilled personnel, innovators & entrepreneurs through practical skills training, problem-solving skills and leadership training using digital technologies.” -said Ms. Sandra Juliet Ahiataku ( Bridge the Gap/ Operations Associate -Kumasi Hive)

Kumasi Hive; is a multi-space innovation place for rapid prototyping of ideas, budding local innovations, impact start-up support and promoting youth entrepreneurship as a way of addressing critical social economic and developmental challenges… Read more

One Thousand United States Dollars (1,000 USD) Geographic/Country Category:

This year we received over 350 applications, we continue to see increased interest in the program. Our 2017 winners include AboCoders from Nigeria, Bahir Dar University STEM Center in Ethiopia and Ubongo Game Lab from Zambia.

For more information on the Miss.Africa Digital Seed Fund awards, visit the MissDotAfrica.Digital website.

Eco-Sol, Seychelles

“Eco-Sol is delighted to have it’s ‘Full STEM Ahead!’ initiative from Seychelles selected from an overwhelming 350 applications across Africa. We are grateful to the Miss.Africa Seed Fund team for believing in our project and choosing to support us in this fantastic manner.” – Malshini Senaratne, Eco-Sol (Seychelles)

The ‘Full STEM Ahead!’ project aims to give girls the chance to reach for the futures they deserve by providing opportunities for them to explore concepts around STEM… Read more

CRNS, Tunisia

Lamia CHAARI, the principal investigator of 1st IoT Joint Program to African Young Women said: “I am absolutely very delighted to have been selected for this award and I would like to give recognition to my fantastic team who will contribute to the event success. Furthermore, Everyone at INTELLECT-Team at Digital Research Center of SFAX is enthusiastic about getting this award that will enable us to implement and concretize the 1st IoT Joint Program to African Young Women.

Miss Africa Seed Fund award boost us to give more and more to the young scientist women and to go ahead to participate actively in promoting and inspiring young women to STEM and emerging technologies.

On behalf of all the young ladies that we involved in our event, we express our great gratitude to Miss.Africa Seed Fund.”

CRNS : INTELLECT-Team at Laboratory of Technologies for Smart Systems is located in Digital Research Center of SFAX, TUNISIA. Among their research activities, they focus on the effective deployment of IoT systems for diverse applications

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