The Standard Chartered Bank and @iBizAfrica – Strathmore University, through its partnership program the Women in Tech Incubator program, has awarded 7 women-led businesses with USD 70,000 (Ksh. 9.2 million). This marks the successful conclusion of the 6th cohort of the incubation program.
The award ceremony, themed Leveraging Technology for Impact, was presided over by The Standard Chartered Bank Board Member, Mr. Imtiaz Khan, Standard Chartered Bank Kenya CEO, Kariuki Ngari Strathmore University Vice Chancellor, Dr. Vincent Ogutu, and @iBizAfrica Incubation Centre- Strathmore University Director, Dr. Joseph Sevilla.
The 6th Cohort of the Women In Tech Program launched in March 2023, attracted a pool of over 250 startups from sectors such as agriculture, finance, transportation, health, and construction industry. 15 women-led startups were shortlisted to undergo a 3-month incubation training modeled around the fundamentals of business idea conceptualization, strategy formulation, Internet of Things (IoT), marketing, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence.
Dr. Vincent Ogutu, the Vice Chancellor at Strathmore University, “ As we celebrate the graduation of this Women in Tech Cohort, it’s important to recognize the role of technology in our daily lives. “Recent study has shown that only 14.6% of Startups in Africa are founded by women, there is hope for a bigger representation. If women receive the right mentorship, training, and coaching the tech ecosystem in Africa will thrive even more. Currently, 30.9% of all new tech roles are filled by female candidates, showing a slight increase from 29% in the previous year, according to recent statistics. Academia and the Private sector need to collaborate more for programs like this that support women-led businesses.
These 15 teams are an increase from the previous cohorts, where 10 businesses were incubated and 5 startups per cohort received funding.
Speaking during the event, Mr.Kariuki Ngari, CEO, Standard Chartered Bank Kenya & East Africa said, “Supporting women-led enterprises is a key component of our ambition to impact and influence the growth of the SME sector, and the Women in Tech programme enables us to bring this vision to life. We have been able to catalyse growth through our latest cohort and are confident that the entrepreneurs who have gone through the program will be better positioned to take up the opportunities in across the various sectors that they serve.”
The seven awarded women-led startups demonstrated excellence based on three main criteria:
- A female-led start-up business that solves social economic needs in Kenya
- An innovative startup that utilizes emerging technologies ie. Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, Augmented and virtual Reality; 3D & 4D Printing; Cloud Computing; Big Data; Blockchain; Drone Technology, and Biometrics.
- A business model with a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) alignment
The Women In Tech Top 7 startups for this year are as follows:
- Sign-With Us – Sign with Us is a Sign language training institution that teaches sign language to anyone around the world who has a passion for sign language, or may interact with a deaf person in their line of work.
- Saidiwa Rides – Aims to bridge the gap between unreliable public transportation and relatively expensive digital taxis with a novel driver-passenger pairing model that permits daily commuters to share taxi seats and share costs.
- Imani Health – An e-wallet that enables people to save specifically for healthcare. It breaks down large payments into piecemeal payments that one can easily pay over time before they need the healthcare service.
- Know Learning Ltd – Revolutionizes parental engagement by providing a user-friendly platform that bridges the gap between schools and parents.
- PanaCare- A healthcare company that provides affordable telemedicine services using USSD technology for consultations, remote monitoring, and health management tools without internet access.
- Rhea Soil Health Management – Rhea provides access to soil testing and agricultural extension services to smallholder farmers, analyzing soil and providing results and fertilizer recommendations through a machine learning-powered recommendation system.
- Instruct Africa -Instruct is a legal tech company that leverages tech and data to provide legal assurance to matatu drivers and bodaboda operators. Our mission is to democratize access to justice and legal tools in the informal sector.
Since its inception, the program has trained more than 64 women-led businesses leveraging on technology by offering mentorship, advisory, coaching, networking opportunities, access to seed capital, and investor forums that help mold their businesses to international standards. To date, 32 startups have been awarded over Ksh. 1.2 million (USD 10,000) in seed funding with the first five cohorts attracting over 2,000 applications.