Iridescent, a nonprofit empowering underrepresented young people globally to become innovators and leaders recently concluded their annual Technovation World Pitch Summit 2018, an opportunity offered to young girls around the world to learn and apply the skills needed to solve real-world problems through technology in their community challenging them to use the power of internet and mobile applications to solve it. Girls work in teams to build both a mobile app and a business plan to launch that app, supported by mentors, guided a curriculum.
On Thursday night, after facing judges from around the world, team Nigeria called Save-A-Soul won top honors at the Junoir Division of 2018 Technovation World Pitch Summit, the world’s largest tech entrepreneurship program for girls ages 10-18. Their app called ‘FD-Detector (Fake Drug Detector)’ tackles the problem of fake pharmaceutical products.
“Leveraging technology to save lives is our utmost priority, that is why we have decided to maximize this opportunity to solve the incessant rate of death caused by fake drugs,” said Team Save-A-Soul.
According to Team Save-A-Soul, Nigeria has one of the largest markets for fake drugs, the girls plan to partner with the agency responsible for drug regulation in Nigeria, the National Agency for Food & Drug Administration and Control.
These young ladies in Junior Secondary School, developed a mobile application called ‘FD Detector’ to tackle the problems of fake pharmaceutical products in Nigeria.
Yesterday, they won the 2018 Technovation World Pitch in California.
Congratulations! We are very proud of you. pic.twitter.com/SFFVvP88JB
— Prof Yemi Osinbajo (@ProfOsinbajo) August 10, 2018
Well done to Uchenna Onwuamaegbu-Ugwu, the founder of Edufun Technik STEM Center.
I understand that she and her company were responsible for mentoring the young ladies. Great job!
— Prof Yemi Osinbajo (@ProfOsinbajo) August 10, 2018
The 2018 World Pitch Summit is the final event following more than seven months of hard work, innovation, and problem-solving by more than 19,000 girls in 115 countries supported by over 5,000 mentors. The Save-A-Soul team are from Regina Pacis in Onitsha, Nigeria comprising of Promise Nnalue, Jessica Osita, Nwabuaku Ossai, Adaeze Onuigbo and Vivian Okoye with Mrs. Uchenna Onwuamaegbu-Ugwu, as their mentor.
The young Nigerians were selected from 2,000 mobile app developers to represent Africa at the world pitch and beat teams from the United States of America (USA), Spain, Turkey, Uzbekistan and China to win this year’s prize of more than $50,000 awarded across the teams in seed funding and scholarships. Their work got a congratulatory tweet from Nigeria’s acting President Yemi Osinbajo.
It’s inspiring to have them overcome the turmoils of their environment, coming from a country with no infrastructure to support technological growth especially with the misogynistic ideologies that still governs most sectors of the country.
