Africa is brimming with innovative ideas. These five schoolgirls from Nigeria have won the Gold Medal in the 2018 Technovation Challenge for their app that detects counterfeit medicine in Silicon Valley in San Francisco, US.
They are students of Regina Pacis Secondary School in Onitsha, Anambra State.
The team, Save A Soul, comprises five brilliant girls: Jessica Osita, Promise Nnalue, Adaeze Onuigbo, Nwabuaku Ossai, and Vivian Okoye, who represented Nigeria and Africa in the contest.
Despite their limited tech knowledge, the Nigerian teens learned how to build a mobile app from scratch using open-source software from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The girls developed an app called FD-Detector to combat the menace of fake drugs in Nigeria. The app can scan a drug’s barcode to ascertain its authenticity and expiration date.
Led by Uchenna Onwuamaegbu-Ugwu, CEO of Edufun Technik STEM, Save A Soul clinched the gold medal ahead of 2,000 competing applications from representatives of countries including the USA, China, Spain, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.
Having won, the girls, who were personally sent off by the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, will also attend field trips and workshops, including a networking session, during their one-week stay in the US.
For Osita, there was a more personal, poignant reason for creating the app: her brother died after fake drugs were administered to him following an accident.
“My brother died from fake drugs. I’m very motivated by the death of my brother to solve this problem,” she said.
“With this app, we will relieve the burden. I feel very excited,” said Osita, who has ambitions to become a pharmacist. “I want to produce genuine drugs,” she said.
Osita and her four other teammates beat teams from the US, Spain, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and China in the finals to secure the top spot in the junior category.
“Some people told me ‘you’re a girl, why are you going into tech?'” said Osita. “At first, my parents didn’t understand what I was doing, but only recently have they seen what I’m doing. They are very, very proud.”
Since their win, they have been feted, and the world’s media has been clamouring to interview them.
One of her teammates, Promise Nnalue, 14, told CNN: “People are calling us celebrities and taking pictures with us. I’m very happy. We could not have done this without our mentor. She really believed in us and encouraged us,” said Nnalue, who aspires to become a doctor.
Speaking to the teenagers, it is clear that their mentor, Uchenna Ugwu, has profoundly impacted their lives.
Ugwu introduced them to computers and coding through her Edufun Technik organisation, which teaches STEM to underprivileged children in Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria.
Ugwu said her organisation has taught approximately 4,800 schoolchildren since 2014, over 60% of whom have been young girls, to close the widening gender gap in STEM education.
*Additional reports from CNN
