Maureen Agena, she is from Kampala, Uganda in East Africa. She is a News media enthusiast, trainer, youth activist and a trained citizen Journalist. She currently works as a program Manager at Text to Change - a Mobile for Development company. Prior to this, she worked at Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) for 3 years as an Information & Communications Officer. She holds a B.Sc. in Information Technology & M.Sc. in Information Systems. Maureen was recipient of Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship and an ARDYIS 2010 East African award winner. She is passionate about ICT4D, mobile technology and gender issues in technology.
Maureen Agena is an ICT for Agriculture technical consultant in Uganda Agricultural practice. She is working to contribute to the transformation of the agricultural sector and youth engagement in agriculture through a Hack-a-thon program.
Miss Ayena is a board member of AYINET, which was nominated for the 2015 Nobel Peace prize.
She is also a co-founder of GirlGeekKampala.
Her work:
Agena has worked as an independent ICT for Development consultant, trainer and researcher for over 7 years. She has consulted in the thematic areas of Agriculture, Health, education and communication. She has extensive consulting experience with both Government and private sector. Maureen loves hiking, game drives, swimming and travelling. She also runs a blog called Dignityinpoverty.
She has worked in online communications in the World Bank’s Kenya country office. She helped with marketing the social networking tools, blogging, research and conceptualization of content.
In 2009, she actively engaged in citizen journalism for Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) at the annual Digital Citizen Indaba in South Africa. DCI is a platform for citizens trying to empower themselves and their community through the use of new media technologies. It covers a broad spectrum including: blogging, podcasting, vodcasting (delivering video on demand via podcast), mobile journalism, citizen reporting, new media practitioners, online industry experts and civil society representatives.
Apart from her full time work, she is a part time online communications consultant with UNFPA Uganda and she is involved in many Tech innovations in Kampala.
She started getting this passion when she joined women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) in 2008 just right after her first degree. She engaged in several training such as Gender and counseling, citizen journalism and several others. While at WOUGNET, she learnt that women face a lot of challenges when trying to use, access and apply technology in their work. This is usually because of constraints like limited skills, restrictions to their mobility and their inability to afford these ICT tools and service. All these led to her study of ICT.
Why TechHer Loves Her:
Maureen has used ICT actively to empower rural women in the agricultural sector of the northern part of Uganda and impacting positively on so many lives.
Ory Okolloh Mwangi) is a Kenyan activist, lawyer, and blogger. Okolloh was born into a relatively poor family. She earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated from Harvard Law School in 2005. Okolloh lives in Johannesburg, SouthAfrica with her husband and three children.
Okolloh has a personal blog; Kenyan Pundit; which was featured on Global Voices Online.
In 2006, she co-founded the parliamentary watchdog site Mzalendo. The site sought to increase government accountability by systematically recording bills, speeches, MPs, standing orders, etc.
When Kenya was engulfed in violence following a disputed presidential election in 2007, Okolloh helped create Ushahidia website that collected and recorded eyewitness reports of violence using text messages and Google Maps. The technology has since been adapted for other purposes which include monitoring elections and tracking pharmaceutical availability. It is also used in a number of other countries.
Ory Okolloh is a regular speaker on youth activism, technology in Africa and citizenship journalism. She has presented at numerous conferences such as TED, Mobile Web Africa and World Economic Forum.
A respected figure within African and global technology circles, Okolloh is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential women in global technology. She was ranked in second place on ITNewsAfrica’s Most Influential Women in Science and Technology feature list and has been profiled by Forbes.
In the face of all odds, Ory Okolloh with determination and focus rose to the top of her career in the technology industry. Ory’s work combining technology and politics reveals her fundamental belief in the power of technology ideas and the power of sharing knowledge.
Information gleaned from the internet.
