Last week we told you about the Precious Blood Riruta students who managed to make it the the finals of the Technovation Challenge. The 5 girls namely Harriet Karanja, Priscilla Wambui, Laura Ayushi, Victoria Kanan, and Gladys Wairimu go by the name Team Sniper. Their app named ‘M-safiri’ was named first runners up in the global contest. The app is designed to ease the process of booking and paying for public transport. The girls tied in second place with ‘Go Green’ an iOS app by the New Dork team from USA that is meant to minimize food wastage by restaurants. The winning app was ‘OOL’ by Team from Mexico that encourages citizens to volunteer in social work.
Harriet Karanja, one of the students, who is also the Team Sniper Marketing Director, had this to say, “We are happy for the rare opportunity to participate in this year’s Technovation Challenge. We are also delighted that we are able to compete on a global platform and emerge second. We acknowledge the support of our coach, mentors, teachers and Safaricom Women in Technology (WIT), who gave us the necessary guidance, skills which have helped us compete with teams from across the world and emerged second.”
Ann Cheboi, a Safaricom WIT member and one of the mentors of the girls had this to say, “We are proud of the girls and what they have achieved, this will go a long way in encouraging other girls in Kenya and Africa to take part in the Technovation Challenge next year. We also hope this will encourage other girls to see themselves not just as users of technology, but as inventors, designers, builders and entrepreneurs.”
The students were coached by Daisy Ndung’u, a student at Multimedia University and mentored by Anne Cheboi, Josephine Kamanthe and Emily Jematia Bett from Safaricom. The developers hope that the solution will be adopted in the public transport industry and as a result will lead to an increase in the standards.