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.
Nkemdilim Begho is the daughter of Chris Uwaje who pioneered the conceptualization Framework and content drafting strategy for the establishment of the National Information Technology Development Policy for Nigeria.
Mrs Begho is the Managing Director of Future Software Resources Limited- an IT solutions provider focused on online solutions, e-learning and IT security. Nkemdilim volunteers and mentors young and less privileged children in Nigeria. She has a B.Sc. in BioInformatics from Ludwig-Maxmillians Universitat Munchen, Germany.
Nkem has been featured on several newspaper and magazine publications as an expert speaker on ICT in Africa.
Her Work:
She started her career as an Application Developer at Max Planck Institute for Psychiatric Research, Munich Germany in December 2002. Mrs. Begho developed software tools to aid genetic research, and plugins for Micro-array database (Java).
In 2005, Mrs Begho was the Channel Manager for Leapsoft Nigeria Limited.
Between December 2004- December 2009, she worked as Bioinformatics Consultant and Software Developer for Affectics Pharmaceuticals. Nkem developed a chemical compound database called Affectis KemSuite (Java PostrgreSQL) Affectis KemSuite is an in - house developed compound database system with chemical intelligence, which enables company wide data integration. Affectis KemSuite delivers all essential functionalities that ISIS Base,Chem Office or IDBS have, including the support of all data formats primarily used by the pharmaceutical industry.
She’s one of the Board Members of the World Summit Youth Award from 2010 till date;Board Member of the World Summit Youth Award, a global e-content contest with core focus on the acceleration of the Millennium Development Goal implementation.
In February 2008, she became the Managing Director of Future Software Resources Limited- a website design & web-solution provider located in Lagos, Nigeria. She was also among the Research and Development Team, for National Information Technology Development Agency on E-Government Interoperability Framework.
Other services her company offers include online marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), content management system development, online recruitment, graphic design, brand development (logo design and branding), workflow, business and educational software development and IT consultancy services for Nigerian corporate and start-up businesses, as well as the public sector.
Her company innovated the first digital business cards in Nigeria.
In September 2009, she was part of the NITDA Open Standards Framework on Creation and development of the open standards framework for Nigeria.
Why TechHer Loves Her:
Her success is founded on a passion for driving innovative thinking, building a globally recognized technology brand and setting trends in the Nigerian Technology sector
Winnie Ngamije is a Burundi-born Rwandan national form Kigali, Rwanda. Miss Ngamije was offered a full scholarship to complete her Bachelor’s degree with distinction in Computer Engineering and Information Technology from Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in 2010. She has a certificate in Software Security from Coursera in 2015.
Winnie is a techprenuer from Rwanda. She works as an IT engineer at Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority. She was among the ambitious female leaders in technology from the Middle East brought to Silicon Valley by Techwomen in October 2014 for its five-week long immersion.
Her Work:
Why TechHer Loves Her:
We love Winnie Ngamije for her hard work, dedication and commitment in technology space. She is a role model to identify with.
Gleaned from Internet
Lola Masha is the country manager of OLX Nigeria. OLX is the leading online classified player in the country. Masha joined OLX Nigeria in February 2014 with the goal of building a world-class, trusted and secure online classifieds business that stands out from its competition.
She holds a Ph.D in Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to this time, she has a Bsc in Chemical Engineering from University of Virginia. She also holds a Certificate in Management Technology, from University of California, Berkley.
Masha is an outstanding individual with expertise in business development, entrepreneurship, operational transformation, strategy and product development, across numerous industries including technology and consulting.
She has significant international experience and has worked with brands like Google and McKinsey Consulting.
Lola, in spite of her educational background in engineering with a passion for technology, made her venture into technology related field. She has been of immense significance to OLX.
Marlise Montcho, hails from Benin. She is a telecoms engineer and an inspirational leader who is passionate about technology, social change, and entrepreneurship. Marlise has a certification in business and entrepreneurship from University of Texas, Austin. Here’s more on her educational background:
Marlise has a Bachelor’s Degree in Analysis and Policy Development from Faculté des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion.
In 2012, she bagged a Degree as a Telecommunication Engineer.
Marlise is an active member of Junior Chamber International Network. She has been named as one of the fifteen Africa's women tech leaders in 2015 and one of the 100 visioning women to watch in 2016.
She is the founder and president of an NGO called FemTICDEV. She also runs a blog called www.handinewlook.net.
She is the deputy chair of the Committee on Technology of Africa Youth Movement and the regional ambassador of GlobalTechLeaders and AfricaITWomen.
Marlise has received several awards and Honours such as:
Why TechHer Loves Her:
She is a role model to girls and women in Benin Republic. Marlise mentors women in technology where one of the benefactors of the initiative recently won a blogging award in Benin. We love to see women helping other women grow using technology as a tool.
Emma Kaye is the founder and CEO of a full funded start-up venture called Bozza. Born in Zimbabwe, Emma studied business marketing and computer programming at Oxford Brookes University, England and from there moved to London.
Emma has a number of seminal business and industry ventures to her name, and attained multiple professional accolades and leading-light endorsements in the course of her career spanning 15 years. Emma was nominated as the first African to sit on the board of the prestigious MEF, the Mobile Entertainment Forum, the global voice of entertainment on the mobile phone.
Emma Kaye is the founder and CEO of Bozza. Bozza is a technology platform that enables young African musicians, filmmakers and poets to connect with fans who want locally relevant content via their mobile device, desktop and free-to-air satellite television.
TechHer is proud of Emma Kaye for her outstanding performances in entrepreneurial and Technology fields. She was one of the top 100 business women in South Africa while also being nominated as one of the top 5 women in Africa in Science and Technology.
About Her:
Ire hails from Ogun state. She was born into the family of Late Mr Tayo and Mrs Olunfunlola Aderinokun. Ire had a bit of career crisis which made her switch from several educational background and finally decided to be a professional Software developer and User Interface designer. Here’s more on the switch in her educational background:
She is currently the Head of Designs and Tech at Big Cabal Media, the publishers of online publications such as TechCabal and Zikoko. Ire has designed and worked on several open source side projects as a freelancer.
Her Work:
Ire has designed and worked on several open source side projects at TechCabal as a freelancer and an employee.
She designed the website http://www.studioofmode.com/ for Studio of Mode; a company that creates space for the voice of creativity with several skills that can be clearly understood.
Miss Aderinokun created an App called Formback; a hackable sass -based form reset for forms.
She designed “Designers News for Pebble"; an application for the pebble smartwatch that displays the top and recent stories from Designer News.
One of Aderinokun project is Instachrome; an extension for Google Chrome that displays Instagram posts from a tag of your choice which has over 200 active users.
She created a blog called "Bits of Code" for self-taught web developers. The blog was geared when she was struggling to get clients.
A fun bot for slacks that mimics Dj Khaleed called 'Khaleed Bot' was featured on ProductHunt.
She designed a free theme marketplace for ghost blogging platform called Open Writer. It has been featured in a list of superb Free and Premium Ghost Themes.
Miss Ire designed the Unofficial 'canIuse Embed'; which is an embedded widget to display updates from www.caniuse.com which displays feature support data for multiple versions of the major browsers such as Chrome, Firefox etc.
Some of her favorites works are Le Retail, Bode Agusto, and Supper Club among others.
Why TechHer Loves Her:
We are inspired by her learning skills on web development and user interface. It shows her passion towards technology. Her switch in career was more about confidence in her abilities. This would inspire women who think they are not capable of doing something different from what they studied in school or what seem comfortable to them.
About Her
Funke Opeke is Nigerian by birth. She is the Founder and CEO of Main One Cable; an Internet solutions company in Nigeria that built a sub-marine cable system which provides advanced network, voice, data, and cloud services to locations across West Africa.
Funke was born into a lovely family and has six siblings; she grew up in Ibadan, Oyo State. Her father was the first indigenous Director of the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria and her mum once worked as Head Teacher of different Catholic private schools in Ibadan.
She attended Queen’s School, Ibadan for High School, and graduated with a B.Sc in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University in 1981. She also has a Master’s Degree in the same discipline from Columbia University, New York; she got that in 1984.
Her Work
She started her career as a Systems Engineer, then joined PA Consulting Group where she held several senior positions at Allied Signal and Telcordia Communications.
Part of Main One Cable’s mission is to start a cyber revolution that would connect the whole of Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Funke Opeke has a keen interest in identifying and utilizing opportunities, and this shines through all the projects she gets involved in.
In 2012, Funke was recipient of the CNBC All Africa Businesswoman of the Year Award. She is a member of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, USA and the Nigerian Society of Engineers.
On the 20th of January 2015, Funke Opeke was appointed as Independent Non-Executive Director to the Board of Atlas Mara, a top notch investor relations firm.
Why TechHer Loves Her
She’s a rare Amazon and epitome of hard work for women folk and a result-oriented Engineer. She’ s a woman with great foresight, and has excellent work ethic. She sees problems as surmountable challenges, which is perhaps one of the reasons she started Main One in the first place. Beyond being shocked at the abysmal level of internet connectivity, she did something.
Prior to Main One Cable, she advocated for the fair treatment of subordinates, especially junior employees in her work places.
Funke Opeke is known to have said "While the developed world was fully connected, here in Nigeria the average young person didn't know what the internet was. We can’t leave an entire generation of young people without prosper access to the internet." We agree, and are inspired by her achievements.
Information gleaned from the Internet.
