Josephine Uwase Ndeze, who hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is the winner of Miss Geek Africa 2019, a competition that brings together young female entrepreneurs in technology space. Uwase designed a mobile platform that can enable expectant mothers to monitor their health during pregnancy. The platform is connected to a smart bracelet, which checks the woman’s vital signs and sends them to an emergency service provider in real time. Basically, it will enable to monitor their progress, symptoms if present, and connect them to their health care providers should the results necessitate an emergency. Uwase’s vision is to contribute to bringing down maternal deaths. She received Rwf3 million in cash prize, a certificate and a technical membership in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). With the membership, she will have access to the most essential technical information and networking opportunities globally. Uwase was awarded yesterday during the closing ceremony of the fifth Transform Africa Summit, which was taking place at the Kigali Convention Centre. She was awarded along with other contestants. The first runner up, Gladys Wairimu, from Kenya, designed ‘Big Brother Surveillance’ that seeks to tackle illegal poaching in parks by using drone technology for surveillance. The 19-year-old received Rwf2 million. The second runner-up, Ndeye Fatou, from Senegal, developed ‘SOS Sang’, which will enable healthcare providers to link with blood banks to ensure that they have access to blood efficiently. It is a web platform that manages and links all blood storages in hospitals in Senegal. The platform is optimised to identify matching and closest blood donors in case of shortage of blood. She walked away with Rwf1 million in cash prize. The other seven finalists are from Kenya, Mauritania, Rwanda, Mali, Benin, and Ghana. They developed everything from solutions for the visually impaired people and addressing haemorrhage, to platforms that have potential to link rural farmers to markets and e-commerce solutions. According to Girls in ICT Rwanda, the organisers of the competition, this year’s edition attracted over 250 applications from 15 countries. Last year, Salissou Hassane, from Niger, was the winner of the competition. The New Times was one of the sponsors of this year’s Miss Geek Africa competition. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
